Death's Promise
by Kacfrog711
Summary: Heero is being held in a cell when he receives some unexpected visitors: one of whom can help him escape... for a price. He accepts, and is tossed into a world of gods, lost souls, ethereal beings, and myseterious voices. (1+2+1 3+4+3)
1. Running

A/N:  
-Despite the title of this fanfic and the message behind it, I DO NOT CONDONE SUICIDE, HOMICIDE, PESTICIDE, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF KILLING. I'm just having fun toying with new ideas rather than accepting old stereotypes. I don't seriously believe a single word of anything I'm writing about death, God, Satan, or the afterlife, and I don't want you to, either. It's fiction, and it's meant to be enjoyed. My purpose is not to sway your beliefs or contradict them; it's to make you think what if? I don't want you to believe what I tell you; I want you to humor me. I want you to question old beliefs and come to your own conclusions, just like I'm doing. Most of all, I want you to enjoy what you're reading. It's meant to be fun, not real.  
-Don't expect to see this fic finished, ever. If you have a problem with reading something that will never have an ending, please don't read on. (And, no, begging for an ending won't make me write one. Sorry. ...Although it might make me feel guilty.)  
-I hate to use Japanese words in English fics, but I can't see a better way of doing this... When someone is speaking to or about a really important figure, he calls him [insert name]-sama. ...I just can't stand having all of that "master" or "mistress" business... (For those who may not know, "--sama" is suffix that gets the point of "extreme respect" across.) Sorry for the inconveniences this may cause, if any.  
  
Warnings:  
-AU (Heero is a Gundam pilot; the rest never were. I mean it, the entire rest of the cast is not in its normal roles.), blood, death, disturbing imagery, violence, cursing, sacrilege, angst, (very non-graphic ^_^;;;) yaoi (1+2 and 3+4), and some het mixed in here and there (though there's more of both in the later never-to-be-written two sequel books).  
  
Summary:  
Heero is captured, drugged, and being held in a waiting cell when he receives a few unexpected visitors: one of whom can help him escape... for a price. He accepts, and is tossed into a world of gods, lost souls, ethereal beings, and myseterious voices. (eventual 1+2 and 3+4)  
  
Book One [of Three]: Death's Promise  
by Kacfrog711  
  
Chapter 1: Running  
  
Heero groaned as whatever they had given him began to wear off. The numbness that was currently occupying his body began giving way to immeasurable pain, and every cut, bruise, and broken bone he had obtained in the past twenty-four hours began to throb with renewed vivacity. He could feel his heart thumping heavily in his chest, and its beats were echoed in his pounding head. Heero would have cursed the pain but was too sore to bother. Instead, the boy rattled the chains cutting into his wrists, which were attached to the wall somewhere above his head, trying to find a weakness in them. No such luck, Heero sighed and hung his head limply in defeat.   
  
He had been caught. It'd taken a lot of them, and he'd killed many before they'd finally dragged him down, but they had still caught him, nonetheless. There was no excuse for it. Now the entire mission was a failure. Now the colonies had lost for sure. Now the war was as good as over, all because he had failed. He was so stupid! It was all over. He was a failure, a complete failure, and there was nothing he could do about it but sit in this cell and wait to die. Nothing he could do, he'd failed. He'd failed everything. He was worthless, useless. He had lived to see his failure and now he would die of it; he deserved no less. He had failed, and there was nothing he could do about it, about any of it. If only, though... If only...  
  
That's when he heard the voice.  
  
***  
  
"Heero Yuy? I thought he was dead. Actually, I thought I saw him just a few minutes ago..." A young blonde boy stood, his head tilted back as he looked up at one of his superiors. The boy was dressed in flowing white robes, and twin ivory wings larger than the boy himself were neatly folded on his back. His glistening blonde hair seemed to shine like a halo as his sapphire blue eyes looked up in question.  
  
His superior, a woman who appeared to be about twenty-nine, sat behind a golden pulpit, smiling down on the boy. She shook her short blonde hair once sharply, then answered in a resonating voice, "No, Quatre. You and I are speaking of two different people: the one you know, and the one currently on Earth."  
  
"Oh." The child said in realization, then smiled brightly. It wasn't uncommon for more than one person to have the same name. Of course, it was usually something like, "Matthew Schmidt," not "Heero Yuy." Quatre shrugged. "Well then, when do I leave, Saint Lucrezia?"  
  
The saint ruffled her feathery white wings as her head bent downwards to eye the book on the pulpit. Through small round spectacles that suddenly appeared on Lucrezia's nose in a small puff of mist, shimmering navy-blue eyes scanned the writing before her quickly; then, she spoke, "As soon as possible. It's a short-time deal on this one, Quatre. He just needs comfort in his last four, or maybe five, days."  
  
Quatre frowned but nodded. Those were the worst sort of jobs. After he had died and been accepted into Heaven, Quatre had volunteered to be an angel because he had wanted to help people, to comfort them; what he hadn't realized was how often he'd be comforting sickly, often dying, men and yet be unable to help them. However, being an angel, he found the optimistic side of every situation he was put in. Replacing the small pout of a frown with a radiating smile, Quatre met his elder's eyes. "I'd be glad to do all I can for him before he joins us in Eternity." The two nodded, smiling, then waved a short good-bye. With that, Quatre spread his wings and jumped off into the crystal sky towards his gloomy destination.  
  
***  
  
He felt like shit again. It all came rushing back to him an instant, and with such force that, had he not been bodily chained to a wall, he would've been knocked over. What-- What had just happened? What had he just done? He had heard the voice, and then-- No. No, it wasn't real. That didn't really happen. "Wake up, Yuy, you're hallucinating." He cursed himself mentally. No one had come into his cell for hours. That little girl with those haunting eyes had never been there. He had been dreaming again. No one was there. He was alone. He was dying. What was worse, he had failed everyone and everything that had counted on him. Nothing could change that, especially not dream children.  
  
That fated fight now seemed like hours ago. Someone had sabotaged Wing shortly before it. Heero couldn't believe it. How had he been so stupid as to let someone near his dear Wing? How had that someone managed to crack his security in the short time he was away? How had it happened?! But it had, and he'd paid the price for it. Heero'd fought on, despite not having a functioning beam saber, despite having no ammunition, despite losing all hope of winning. He couldn't fight forever; he knew that. So he self-detonated.   
  
He was supposed to die in that battle. The whole base should've been taken out by the blast and he should've went down with it in a ball of light, melding into one with his shattered Gundam. What had gone wrong?! He had survived, and even the base had survived fairly intact. Maybe they even had his Gundam somewhere, piecing it back together like a puzzle of shrapnel, debris, and twisted metal. Who knew? Heero was no longer sure about anything he had once known. He had died, and then he had been awake, and soon after, the enemy had been trying to get him to reveal information. He hadn't, of course. Besides, he couldn't even think then; the pain had been so intense. They had pumped him full of some nasty chemicals that did God-only-knows to his system: at least one of which was a painkiller, another of which sped up his heart rate much too fast for Heero's liking, and yet another of which seemed to make him hallucinatory. It didn't matter what exactly those chemicals he'd been injected with were, though, because he had passed out soon after receiving them. He had then spent what had felt like days passing into and out of consciousness in that tiny room that smelled like needles.   
  
So now he was here in a waiting cell. Waiting to be questioned, killed, or tortured, he didn't know or really care. This cell was his grave. If they didn't come back soon, he'd die here. If they did come back, he'd die somewhere else. Then THAT would be his grave. What did the location matter? Nothing mattered. He felt lifeless already. He couldn't even feel his arms anymore, suspended above him like they were. "Dead man hanging." The cold in the solid steel cell didn't even bother Heero, didn't even reach him. All his mind could process were self-loathing, cold numbness, and sharp bursts of intense driving pain. What's worse, he was at the mercy of his enemies and with no one on his side that could help him escape. No one on his side... He was as good as dead, and Heero was fully aware of this. Somehow, it didn't scare him as much as he thought it should. Nothing scared him anymore. Besides, it hurt too much to be scared. His heart pounded on in a dull rhythm all over his body. Heero counted the beats, but without a clock or watch, it wasn't much use. He estimated that his heart was going at least twice as fast as it should be, and that was enough to do permanent damage. He gulped in short gasps of air, but it didn't slow his bolting heart even marginally. Of all the ways to die, it would be of a heart attack from some unnamed drug? That was unexpected, to say the least. Heero gritted his teeth as another wave of pain rolled through his spine from fingers to toes. Then it was gone, but his heart wasn't so easily sated; it was really starting to making his chest hurt, like it would burst at any minute.  
  
***  
  
Quatre dropped smoothly through the ceiling of Heero's cell without a sound. His wings beat softly, stirring the dust up as he landed with swift grace. He stood there watching the panting captive for a moment, the angel's smooth pale skin in stark contrast to the dull metallic walls encompassing him. After a moment, the boy whispered, "Heero Yuy?"  
  
The figure didn't stir, so Quatre tried again, his voice soothing but strong. "Heero?"  
  
Stirring from his thoughts, the captive raised his dark head slightly and eyed the empty room suspiciously. His dark blue eyes scanned over the heavenly creature as if it were not there, and to Heero's eyes, it wasn't. "Hearing voices again, Yuy? It must be another side-effect of the drugs." He sighed, cutting his thoughts off. Thinking hurt. Everything besides doing nothing hurt. Hell, doing nothing hurt, too. He grimaced again as another wave of pain rolled from his right arm, through his spine, and into his legs. "That arm is definitely broken, and the painkillers are wearing off. Damn it."  
  
Assured that the beaten boy in front of him was whom he was looking for, Quatre slowly walked over to him. His feet barely touched the ground as he walked, and it seemed as if the blonde flew across the metal floor without using his wings. He paused before Heero and laid a reassuring hand on the captive's shoulder. Heero inhaled sharply at the touch, then relaxed fully, now hanging by the chains that held his wrists in place. The angel frowned despite himself. This was such a terrible place and an awful situation to be in. He couldn't help but wonder how such a young boy like Heero had gotten himself into it. Sighing himself, Quatre walked slowly closer and embraced Heero, wrapping even his wings about the soldier in a shimmering white shelter or warmth and love. The angel remained there for some time, giving the battered soldier what little comfort he could provide, his thoughts centered on reassurance and peace. Heero seemed to relax, the pain barely visible in his features.   
  
The blonde didn't move until he heard something coming from a far corner. Not retracting his warm embrace, the angel turned his head and strained his eyes into the darkness, trying to pick out a form. After a moment, Quatre recognized the sound as horses' hooves: one horse, at a light trot. The sound stopped after a few minutes, and the sound of someone dismounting followed. Squinting, the angel strove to determine who was coming. His eyes widened as realization dawned on him, and he only hugged his current charge more tightly as the figure approached.   
  
A man in black clothing and a long black cloak walked softly towards the two. His face was completely in the shadow of his hood, and only the pale skin of his hands offset the dark figure. He paused when he was a few feet from the angel and said nothing. Quatre shook lightly, but tried to keep himself calm. He questioned the figure timidly, "Death-sama?" and the figure nodded his hooded head.  
  
"Go on, Holy One. Get out of here." A voice that had an echo too rich for its youthful tenor tone resounded through the cool room, but Heero did not seem to hear it. The figure continued in a steady voice, pointing at an undisclosed point somewhere away from Heero, "Go back to your Father and leave us. Your work's done."  
  
Quatre, still clinging to the chained boy his own age shook his head repeatedly, "No." At first, his voice failed him, so he repeated, "No, I-- I was told he had four days. Please allow me that much. Can't you see he needs the comfort?" The angel could not read the cloaked man's response since his face was still well-hidden, but he heard the crisp response as it echoed off the slick metal walls around them.  
  
"You're right on one part, Holy Child: his thread ends four days from now. If you really want me to, I'll leave him and come back in four days, but what I find won't be pretty. If events run as I've been told they will, his soul will be shattered by then, his body broken far beyond what it is now, and his mind will be absolutely shredded, all way beyond repair. That's why I'm here now, to prevent all this. I don't want to be burdened with a broken soul on my hands when I can simply take it now and get it in one piece. And I'm sure you, Angel, don't want the guilt of a broken soul on your holy head, either, am I wrong?" Quatre turned his gaze away from the man in black and buried his face in Heero's neck, unable to verbally deny what he knew to be true. Seeing this, the cloaked figure added in a relatively gentle tone, "Believe me, it'd be best for everyone if he goes with me now rather than then. If I don't take him, what's in store for him in the next few days can't be amended by any small solace your Heavenly Self might provide."  
  
Loosening his grip on Heero, the angel reluctantly stepped back. He visibly cringed when Heero groaned lightly in pain at the loss of the intangible comfort. Quatre looked sadly over at the dark figure. "I do believe you, Death-sama, but may I stay with him, or must I leave?"  
  
A minute of consideration passed before the covered figure responded hesitantly, "You can stay, if you really must," he conceded, then finished darkly, "but I'm warning you not to interfere. Don't touch him again if you value your status as a child of God."  
  
The angel nodded and stepped farther back from Heero in show of his agreement. As the dark figure approached Heero's unconscious form, Quatre questioned softly, "Will it hurt him?"  
  
The figure paused in front of Heero, and turned towards the inquisitive angel. He spoke softly, his voice full of reassurance. "No. The release of his conscious soul is a gift compared to the pain he has endured in his past." Quatre nodded mutely and the darker boy turned back toward his goal. The figure examined Heero for a minute with his shadowed eyes, then placed a pale hand on the boy's chest, just above the line of Heero's tank-top. In response, Heero shivered at the freezing touch, his breathing speeding up for a short second before slowing down drastically; so much so that he was barely breathing at all. The cloaked boy felt the heartbeat under his hand slow gradually until it was only a light pulsing under his frigid fingertips.  
  
The angel watched silently from under a strong-willed appearance. He held up his chin, and yet hugged himself, too. He knew what was happening; he had heard his fellows and souls in Heaven speak of it. However, he'd yet to see it for himself. After all, most angels left before Death was even close; angels and shades never interacted well, never mind the father of all shades himself. Quatre chewed his lower lip lightly in nervousness, desperately telling his feet not to run towards the boy he was supposed to be comforting or away from the omnipotent being in front of him. He was told not to interfere, and he wasn't about to. No matter how much he wanted to help, Death was right: there wasn't much he could do now.  
  
His right hand still pressed against Heero's slowed heart, the cloaked boy pushed back his black hood. A shock of rich brown hair in a messy braid tumbled down his back, and the same hair fell forward slightly, just covering a pair of glowing violet eyes. He leaned forward until his lips were next to his victim's ear, then whispered in an intensely luring voice. "Look at me, Heero Yuy. Open your eyes." He sat back just far enough to watch Heero's face, then waited. When he got no reaction, he slowly pulled his hand back from Heero's chest.   
  
***  
  
As Heero's breath sped up again, his system began once more filling with hot pain. The strong voice ordered him to open his eyes, but why should he? It was just a voice. It wasn't real! He heard the same echoed voice whispering, "You don't want to leave yet. I know. You're too strong. But trust me, Heero Yuy, you want to leave. You need to leave now while you're still in one piece. Take this gift. Open your eyes." Voices, more voices, he really was going crazy! This one sounded far away, like the person speaking was over a mountain, and his voice was simply carried on the wind. Heero groaned as he felt his heart rushing much too fast to be normal. He clenched his fists in their cuffs, gritting his teeth. The pain in his chest was unbearable. Heero desperately tried to control his labored breathing and his pounding chest but to no avail; he was too weak now. "I know it hurts." There was that young male voice again, that far-off voice. What was it saying? The words seemed to meld together, blurring until all he could gather was the tone of them alone; but the tone was enough. He knew what the voice was saying, even though the pounding in his ears drowned the individual words out. "I can stop it. Just open your eyes, Heero Yuy, and I'll end the pain. I can make it go away, but you have to let me. Open your eyes."  
  
***  
  
The shadowed figure before him remained expressionless as Heero writhed in obvious pain. He hated to do this to the boy who'd been through so much already, but it was the only way. Like he had told Heero, he could stop the pain. One touch of his bloodless finger would calm Heero's heart back down to a dull throbbing. Though he hated it, he couldn't help Heero yet, not until he got what he wanted. As soon as Heero opened his eyes, he'd end the pain: an end from pain and a place in Eternity. Escape: it was Death's promise.  
  
***  
  
Heero was running. He didn't know where. "It doesn't matter, Yuy! Run! Run! Run!" The endless mantra ran through his head, speeding up. He could feel his heart racing as he ran, his lungs tight from lack of oxygen. Still, his mind screamed at him, "Don't look back! Run! Run! Faster! Faster! Run! Run! Faster! Faster!" He ran onwards, across the never-ending path. It was paved, and he could feel the warmth of it soaking into the soles of his sneakers. The hot pavement was smooth, and the endless running was making Heero's feet numb from it. His heart was throbbing with each step he took, drumming into a heated natural rhythm. The chanting continued in his mind, joining the percussion of his feet and pulse, creating a feral tribal music. The music pounded faster, the hypnotic chanting met the pace, and his heart continued speeding up with each labored long stride of his legs, with each pounding of his shoes' soles. "Run! Run! Run! It doesn't matter, run! Run, run, run! Faster, faster, run!"  
  
***  
  
"What are you doing to him?!" Quatre shouted, barely restraining himself. "You said you wouldn't hurt him!"  
  
The shadowed figure turned on the angel with blazing violet eyes, "Disgusting creature, I told you not to interfere!" The angel shied back, muttering apologies as thin tears began creeping down his face. The violet-eyed shadow sighed, turning back to Heero. He couldn't apologize, Death made no apologies; everything he did was for a reason. Looking placidly at the boy in front of him, he spoke just loudly enough for the angel to hear. "I'm not hurting him, Child. The pain is from a drug his captors gave him." Then, he leaned forward again and began whispering more coaxing words into Heero's ear when Quatre interrupted again.  
  
"Wh-- why won't you help him, Death-sama?" The words were soft, heartbroken, and full of tears: like that of a betrayed child. "He's hurting. It's killing him inside; I feel it."  
  
Death remained staring at the boy in front of him, seemingly unmoved by the angel's heart-shattering tone. "I know that, Holy Child. And I'm trying to help him, but he won't listen." There was growing edge of frustration in the rich voice. "I can't take his soul prematurely unless he agrees, and I can't get him to agree unless he opens his eyes." Giving up the soft approach, he shouted down, "Open your eyes for me, Heero Yuy. Listen to my voice, and open your eyes."  
  
"Why won't he listen?"  
  
He sighed heavily at the angel's question, trying to keep himself calm. He wasn't used to an audience, and it was getting tiring. His voice restrained, he answered softly. "If I knew that, Angel, I'd be able to fix it." Death paused for a moment, thinking. "I don't think he believes me."  
  
Quatre blinked in confusion, taking a few steps forward to get a better view of Heero. The captive was now sweating as well as breathing heavily; it sounded as if he had been running a marathon. A thick ropey tendon stood out on Heero's neck, and his jaw was tight with suppressed screaming. "What doesn't he believe, Death-sama?"  
  
***  
  
"Don't stop, Yuy. Don't stop, or they'll get you. Run! Run faster! They're on your tail, will you let them win? Never! (Run.) You are Heero Yuy! (Run.) You are a soldier. (Run.) You don't give up. (Run.) You fight. (You run.) Fight it, Yuy. (Run.) Fight them. (Run.) Don't stop running. Run! They want you to stop running! So run! The voices want you to stop your heart from beating, (Run.) stop breathing, (Run.) stop feeling, (Run.) stop living! Run! They're all against you now, Yuy. Run! You can beat them. Run! Just don't stop running! Run!"   
  
Heero ran onward, through dreamscapes of summer forests, winter snowfalls, spring lakes, and autumn mobile suit bases. He ran, his heart threatening to explode with every step. He ran, his lungs threatening to squeeze into his stomach and never inflate again. He ran, his mind threatening him, warning him not to stop. He didn't know what he was running from, but he ran because his mind told him to. He ran on and on until he could no longer feel the muscles in his thighs, and still he ran. His eyes started watering, and then there were tears flooding down his cheeks, and then there was blood running twin rivers down his face where tears should be; but still, he ran. He couldn't stop running. His mind told him not to stop running. The voices wanted him to stop. He had to get away from those voices! The voices followed him, taunting him, all the voices! "Run!" his mind urged him. "Run, Yuy!"  
  
"Who are you working for, kid?"  
  
"Do you want the Colonies to win or not, Mr. Yuy?"  
  
"Heero?"  
  
"Open your eyes, Heero Yuy."  
  
"Run!"  
  
"What's it made of?"  
  
"Sign it."  
  
"It'll be okay."  
  
"I can end it, end it all."  
  
"Run, run faster! Don't let them beat you!"  
  
"Just tell us or you'll regret it! Now, who are you?"  
  
"Make your decision! This time, no one can do it for you."  
  
"Okay, concentrate on me. I promise I won't yet leave you."  
  
"It's all real! I'm real; you must believe what I'm telling you."  
  
"This is your last chance; run!"  
  
"This is your last chance, kid."  
  
"This is your last chance, Mr. Yuy."  
  
"Run!"  
  
"This is your last chance, Heero; don't worry."  
  
"This is your last chance, Heero Yuy, to open your eyes!"  
  
"Run! Run! Run! Run!"  
  
***  
  
Shaking his head, Death responded solemnly. "He won't answer." The shadowy figure pulled his hood back over his violet eyes, still shaking his head. "There's nothing I can do if he doesn't want to die. I'll return in four days when he won't have that choice."  
  
"What?" Quatre grabbed onto the shadowy figure's sleeve, "You can't be serious!" Death was not smiling. The angel quickly dropped his superior's sleeve, muttering apologies and backing away. His eyes were glossy with fear as he timidly glanced from Death to the violently shaking Heero. "I-- I-- I don't think I can help him anymore." He glared at Death, "You can't leave him like that!"  
  
"Child..." the voice from the black expanse below the hood warned him.  
  
"You said yourself what would happen if you leave him here, Death-sama! You-- you can't!"  
  
The shadowed figure sighed in frustration, trying to ignore the fact that an angel was foolish enough to order him to do anything. "You think I WANT to leave him in that condition?" He gestured to the hanging captive who was muttering at one moment, then making choking sobs another, all the while breathing as if the air were thin. "I don't have a choice. I have a very important schedule to keep, and he's not on it for another four days. I will not let one soul cost the Eternity of hundreds of others. I can't. It's my responsibility not to." He turned his back on the angel sharply, then began concisely walking back the way he came. "It's out of my hands."  
  
Quatre glanced from Heero to Death, then back. "De-- Death-sama, wait! Please, wait!" He called out, causing the shadow to pause. "Wh--what do I do? I-- I don't know how to help him." Qutare saw the hooded figure look away. "Please," He pleaded, "Please, Death-sama, if you have any mercy in you at all..."  
  
***  
  
Heero's head was throbbing faster than his heart now, and still he ran, swaying in his steps. "Run! Run! Run!" His mind urged him ever onward, the other voices losing all coherency underneath the shouting of his own mind. "Run! Run!"  
  
"Shut up." He muttered, still running.   
  
"Run!" It replied. "Run! Run!"  
  
"Shut up." He spoke to the air in front of him as he felt twin droplets of liquid sliding down either side of his face.  
  
"Run! Run!"  
  
"Shut up!" He shouted, still running, as he put his hands over his ears, feeling the thick, hot stuff still spilling beneath his sweaty palms.   
  
"Run! Run! Run! Run!"  
  
"Shut up!" His steps were unsteady now, wavering back and forth as his running slowed to a clumsy jog. "Shut up!"  
  
"Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run!" The chant continued steadily, throbbing in his bleeding ears, echoing in his pounding head, drilling into his mind with each syllable, each painful word of, "Run!"  
  
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut uh--" He sobbed, falling to his knees on the hard black pavement. "Shut up." He buried his face in his bloody hands, smearing the thick red substance around his cheeks and eyes, then he desperately gripped his short hair and pulled it hard. "Shut up! Shut up!" His voice cracked, and he relaxed entirely, falling flat against the pavement and shaking. "Shut up. Shut up. God, shut up." He mumbling the litany it to himself, like the most sacred prayers, long after his mind had silenced its previous drilling chant. He lay on the road, sobbing, shaking, praying, as hot blood continued slipping from his ears. His eyes were bloodshot, no longer blue but a harsh burgundy, as bloody scarlet tears swelled in them then fell in thick plops onto the steaming pavement below. The blood slid into his mouth, but he said the prayer around it, blocking out the voices with his own cracked and broken pleading. "Shut up. Shut up. God, please shut up."  
  
He seemed to lay there for years as the four or five different voices continued shouting, never gaining volume, never losing it, even after Heero was sure his ear drums had burst. Then, like a bullet of frozen wind, something piercing straight into his pounding heart, stilling it instantly.  
  
The voices stopped.  
  
***  
  
The shadowed figure stood, his hood still obscuring almost his entire face. He stood an arm's length away from Heero: two icy fingers lightly pressed against the boy's sweat-slicked chest. Apparently, that was enough. Quatre sighed in relief at the sight. Heero was breathing slowly now, all of his muscles relaxed against the chains that held him upright. His face was slack but exhausted looking; his cheeks were wet, and his right ear had a slim trail of blood drizzling from it. The angel bit his lip as he felt Death's intense glare from underneath the hood. "Thank you," the blonde barely whispered.  
  
"Well?" Death's tone held no spite, but was far from pleasant sounding. He didn't like this: going soft just because some angel asked him to pity some dying boy. Death couldn't be soft. He wasn't allowed to pity; he didn't have that right. "Now what?" When the angel didn't respond, he continued, "I can't stand here all night, Holy Child. I have souls waiting outside to attend to. They've been waiting too long already."  
  
Quatre looked down guiltily. He had no idea what to do, but he couldn't let the body he had come to comfort suffer like that. "There-- there has to be something you can say that will make him open his eyes, Death-sama. There has to be." He stated nervously. "I just know it."  
  
The dark figure laughed. "I'd like to know what exactly that 'something' is, then." He paused then added darkly, "Because if you don't come up with something in the next minute," Suddenly, and hourglass appeared in the middle of the cell's floor. It was carved with intricate designs and looked to be made from one large chunk of shiny black stone. Inside its glass, tiny beads of glowing purple sand began slipping downward. "Then I'm leaving, soul or no."  
  
Aqua eyes danced around the room, searching for something, anything, that would give Quatre an idea. Finding nothing, he turned back to Heero and stared, begging the unconscious boy silently for answers. He ran through everything Death had said that had failed. Why wouldn't Heero listen to him? When Quatre had first come in, Heero had looked up. Then he had listened, so why not now? The hourglass' sand was spilling quickly. Well, it was worth a shot. Quatre walked hesitantly forward, motioning for Death to drop his hold on the boy. Reluctantly, the shadowy figure obliged. After a moment, Quatre whispered, "Heero?"  
  
***  
  
Numbness. Coldness. Peace. "I've never felt peace before. Am I dead? This must be what Heaven feels like."  
  
Then it stopped. The coldness started getting warmer, and the relaxed feeling Heero once had had fled him.   
  
A whisper, "Heero?"  
  
He tensed. "Oh, God. Not again. Don't let them start again. I'm sick of running. I can't move. No more voices. It's starting to hurt again. No, I don't want to run anymore. No more voices."  
  
"Heero? Wake up and it'll go away if you do," the voice said. That soft voice, it was the one that didn't yell, didn't hit, didn't laugh.  
  
"I don't believe you." His mind whispered back, knowing fully that the voice couldn't hear him, but whispering anyway.  
  
"It'll all go away, Heero. I promise. Just wake up."  
  
Heero's mind was tired. He couldn't cry, couldn't scream; he was too exhausted. Why run anymore? "Submit, Yuy." His mind scolded. "You're a failure. You've lost everything and you've given up. You're an empty shell, useless. You have nothing left to lose." With a mental sigh, Heero slowly opened his eyes. At first there was nothing to see but a throbbing blur. Then, he could almost hear frantic whispering, but it didn't sound real. After a few moments of consciousness, he became aware of two distinct sensations. There was a cold, hard pressure on his chest in the shape of a hand; Heero knew he should be very alarmed about this, but he wasn't. It didn't feel human, and that was strangely comforting. Secondly, he felt something cool pressing against his left cheek, forcing him to look straight ahead; he distinctly felt a thumb under his chin, like cold silk, and determined that it was the second of twin unearthly hands. The sensations of the hands was lulling, and Heero felt himself drifting ever slowly back into unconsciousness when the hand on his chin jerked him into wakefulness with a jolt. He opened his dull navy eyes fully to come face to face with a pair of deep violet. After a minute of staring, he felt himself falling into the pools, going deeper into the black pupils that rested in the sea of lilac. When he thought he couldn't fall anymore, he heard a whispering chant, but the words were unintelligible, like no language he had ever heard; the chant was soft and dark, fluid in its rapidness, but, unlike the haunting chanting of his mind, this one flew softly over him, like a breeze over still water. Eventually, he became so hypnotized by the velvet chanting that he forgot where he was, who he was, and what was happening, submitting entirely, all too eager to choose the frozen sea over life. He fell asleep without realizing it; he was infinitely tired, and yet, somehow, he wasn't tired anymore.  
  
***  
  
Quatre's wide eyes remained glued to Heero. He watched as Death stared into his victim, their eyes seeming to melt into each other, unblinking. The shadowed figure's lips were moving, just barely, but no words seemed to leave them. After a short time, Heero sagged back where he was hanging with a final exhalation, eyes wide and unseeing. The shadowed figure, one hand still on Heero's chest, the other on his chin, pulled back slowly until he was a few feet away from the corpse he had been holding minutes ago. In each hand he held the chin and chest of a glittering figure, identical to the boy it had just been pulled from. A few seconds later, the glittering sheen faded into a semi-transparency, and Death let go, allowing the newly christened soul to stand on its own.   
  
The angel's feet refused to move for a few minutes after, so he simply stood in the darkness, staring with unblinking eyes at the body of the boy he was supposed to be guarding. Clear, luminescent tears began slowly sliding down his silky cherub cheeks silently. The angelic child seemed to float as he walked over to the still body, then he sat down gracefully beside it. Ignoring the blood, Quatre rested his cheek on Heero's still chest and grieved there, silently.  
  
Death simply stared at his newest work of art for a minute, waiting. Finally, the soul blinked, standing up straight and looking around to get his bearings. Blue and violet eyes locked, each searching for something, but not speaking. After a moment, though, the soul of Heero voiced his question. "Who are you?"  
  
The cloaked figure smiled and held out a hand, "Call me Duo." Now that that trying ordeal was over and he was getting on his way (plus one non-shattered soul, no less), he was in a much better mood.  
  
Heero frowned, not accepting the extended invitation as his eyes scanned the upper walls of the room. "How did you free me of the chains?" Then he looked to his own hands, noticing the cleanliness, and yet eerily pale appearance of them, "My wounds are healed." He looked up in obvious confusion. "What happened?"  
  
Duo responded as any Grim Reaper would; with one heavily cloaked arm, he pointed towards the dead body, on which the angel was still crying. Heero's eyes widened slightly, and he looked back to his hands, then back to his dead body on the opposite side of the room, over and over again. Eventually, he said hesitantly without emotion, "I'm dead." The shadowed figure nodded once, still grinning. Heero nodded slowly to reassure himself, "That's me." Again, Duo nodded. "And you're Death?"  
  
The cloaked man was about to nod again, but stopped himself, "Well, technically, yes. It's actually pretty complicated since you humans have a weird definition of the word 'death.' Well, actually, you're not quite human anymore... but the definition you know is the weird one I'm talking about." Seeing Heero's puzzled look, he finished, "Yes. As far as you're concerned, I would be Death." He bowed gracefully at the introduction.  
  
Heero looked back to his body and, as if he hadn't noticed before, Heero gaped at the sight, "That's an angel?"   
  
Standing, Duo nodded, "Yup."   
  
As if entranced, Heero asked, "Why is he crying for me?" his blue velvet eyes never leaving the angel's back.  
  
Duo answered with a shrug, "Who else would?"  
  
Frowning, the soul began walking over towards the angel, his hand reaching out to place a reassuring pat on the angel's shimmering back. Before he could touch Quatre, though, Duo lunged at Heero, grabbing his wrist. "Hold it, Heero Yuy. You can't touch him, he's holier than thou." Duo smirked at his allusion.  
  
Not amused, Heero didn't struggle but turned his head and spoke numbly, "He shouldn't be crying over me. My life isn't worth it."  
  
"No offense, but what you think doesn't matter. He's a child of God." Duo explained, "One of the Pure Ones. Their job is to comfort humans, and if anyone not human and less pure touches him, the angel's as good as dead."  
  
Heero raised an eyebrow, a small sign compared to the vastness of the confusion he was experiencing. "Angels can die?"  
  
Duo tilted his head. "Now, I didn't say that. I said, 'as good as dead.' Angels aren't alive; so they can't really die, but they can fall. If one disobeys God, he becomes the lowest of God's children: human."  
  
Heero's voice was somber. "I didn't know."  
  
Death smiled a bit brighter, " 'Course you didn't, you've only been a soul for two minutes. I forgive you. But now you know, so don't let it happen, okay?" He released his grip on the soul's wrist and stepped back. "I hate to stop the small talk, but we've really got to be going."  
  
Heero questioned, "Going?"  
  
"Yeah," Duo walked to a wall adjacent to the one behind them and placed the flat of his palms on it. "There's a whole group of souls outside waiting for us. You were the last stop for my shift and it'll be dawn soon." The wall below his hands faded until there was nothing but air between the room and the grass field outside. "We have to make it through Limbo before dawn, and there's two stops for us to make, so let's get a move on."  
  
Dumbly, Heero muttered, "THE Limbo?"  
  
Nodding, Duo replied, "Yup. Limbo is the domain between Heaven, Hell, and Hephess; it's neutral territory, so to speak."  
  
"Hephess?" Heero was getting very confused very quickly.  
  
Duo paused, smiling, "What are you, a parrot?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
His smile widened as he shook his head, "Hephess is my domain like Heaven is God's and Hell is Satan's. If I said any more about it, I'd just confuse you worse, so let's stop there for now, sound good?"  
  
"Oh. Okay."  
  
"Great." Duo looked poignantly in one direction, and suddenly the ground began rumbling. A few seconds later, a large black horse stood in their midst, silver reins and bridle clinking together. Duo easily mounted and began leading the horse outside into a large flat field, Heero following numbly behind him. Once they were through the wall, it began to reappear. Then, Duo shouted, "Oh! Almost forgot!" He guided the horse halfway through the faded wall and saw Quatre lying against Heero's still form. The angel had cried himself to sleep. Death smiled sadly, then turned back to Heero. "Wait here, I'll be back in a flash." He quickly dismounted and walked his horse back through the wall.  
  
Quatre stirred as he felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him lightly. He opened his blurry eyes, rubbing at them, then looked up at Duo. "Oh. Oh! Oh, I-I'm sorry, Death-sama."  
  
He smiled. "Hey, don't apologize. Come on, or you'll miss the ride: namely, me."  
  
Smiling softly, the angel stood, but as he glanced down, his smile disappeared. "I don't want to leave him like that."  
  
Duo sighed. "I know. But there's nothing we can do. Come on, Child." He tossed an arm around Quatre.  
  
"Quatre, Death-sama." He blushed slightly, looking at his feet. It's not every day an angel speaks with one of The Three, and it was just beginning to seep into Quatre's mind who exactly he was speaking to. "My name is Quatre."  
  
Death grinned, grabbed his horse's reins. "That would make me Duo, then, I guess." He laughed and guided both horse and angel back through the wall to meet Heero on the other side, who, like usual, was frowning.  
  
"I thought you said you couldn't touch angels." Heero accused.  
  
Death grinned, tilting his head to one side. "Uh, uh, I said YOU couldn't touch angels." He chuckled at the hard glare he received from Heero. Still grinning, he mounted his horse once more and began leading the way. "Let's get going. We have quite a walk." Quatre obediently followed, wiping stray tears on his white sleeves and sniffling.  
  
Heero fell in line soon after. His eyes began constantly moving, searching around for anything that would be familiar, anything that would make sense. He looked behind him and saw the solid wall they had just come through. His body was on the other side, cold, still, and staring: empty. He really was dead. Honest-to-God dead. Heero shivered and kept glancing around, desperate for a friendly sight. Finding none, he sighed heavily and followed Death and the angel (who were chatting casually) towards "Limbo." Heero glared at the frozen grass in front of him as he walked. He was dead, why did he feel so cold? Well, he didn't really feel anything: his body was numb. He couldn't even feel his hands as he flexed them; but he couldn't suppress the shivers that kept running through his neck or the unsettling coldness of everything.   
  
Unconsciously, the voice ran through his mind again. "Make your decision!" He had made his decision without a second thought. Now, though, he was having quite a number of second thoughts, but it was already much too late for them. Heero watched as his feet moved in front of him, barely registering that he was walking. He couldn't even feel his feet. He couldn't feel anything. He was completely (disturbingly) numb. Hesitantly, Heero held two fingers to his neck and waited. Nothing. Not only was there no pulse, but he couldn't even feel his own fingers pressed against his skin. The soldier sighed heavily.   
  
"At least I'm not running anymore." 


	2. Walking

Chapter 2: Walking  
  
After clearing the military base's property, the three had entered a relatively thin forest. The forest was dark; the streaming moonlight overhead only added to the various moving shadows. It was cold; rain in any season chills the air, but rain in winter can be deadly. (Luckily for the three travelers, however, none of them were capable of dying anymore.) The infectious smells of mud, cold air, and wet pine trees encompassed them, flooding their senses from all around with the feel, taste, sight and smell of nature at its coldest. The sky above was far from that which poets devote verses to with "a never-ending amount of bright twinkling stars in a warm blanket of blue velvet." No, the sky above them was a flat and lifeless amber that bordered on pink, and not a single star could be described as "bright," "warm," or "twinkling." The forest was winter in every way, from the spidery black branches to the half-frozen puddles that littered the ground. A winter forest, it was like a grave that had been cried on by a depressed forgotten widow: shadowed, dead, and wet.  
  
The walk was short, but, to Heero, it seemed to take hours. It had been raining, apparently, because the trees were slimy and dripping with the stuff. For every few steps Heero took, he got a little wetter: either he would step in some hidden puddle and add more water to his already soaked socks, or some cruel leaf left over from fall would decide to tumble at the particular moment Heero was passing under it, drenching the soul's hair with a miniature shower of collected rain. Heero felt sick. It wasn't that he minded being so disgustingly wet; hell, he couldn't even feel the water he knew to be dripping down his face and neck. No, it was something worse that had him feeling this way. There was a nagging voice in the back of his mind; a voice that was laughing at him, poking him, reminding him. While it wasn't anything compared to what he had experienced in that cell, it was there, and it was toying with him. "Guilt!" It shouted. "Painful realization!" It taunted. "Deadly anticipation!" it prodded, leaving him uneasy. He was afraid, even. The feelings the voice caused went straight to his stomach, wrenching it uncomfortably. Of course, the horrid weather didn't help him feel any better. His eyes trained on the ground before him, Heero walked silently, consumed by his thoughts: thoughts created by that voice, that voice that was slowly chipping away at his wall of sanity. He had done the right thing! He had. He'd just keep telling himself that. It was all for the best, in the end. It had to be. With each step that led him closer to his destination, a hard toll on his resolve was taken as well.  
  
Duo, on the other hand, strove forward with eyes daring the path in front of him to get in the way. His hood was back now, allowing violet eyes to peer into the brush ahead with a glowing determination. His dark clothing blended perfectly with the deep forest shades, and he walked proud and sure without a single hesitated step. After all, he was a deity. He had an appearance to maintain. Inside, however, Duo was not nearly so confident. To a trained eye, there was an obvious urgency in his steps, a deeply-rooted fear in the darting of his eyes, a gnawing guilt in occasional biting of his lip. He was worried; he was nervous; he was concerned. But to Quatre, to Heero, to the forest, and to anyone else that should happen to see him, Duo was perfectly at ease, happily walking in no rush whatsoever. To preserve this calm appearance, Duo had even dismounted his horse a while back and was now walking along side the angel, engaging in polite conversation with him. "So what're you still hanging around for, Quatre? Don't you have places to be?"  
  
Unused to such rural territory, Quatre walked daintily on air, careful to keep his bare feet out of contact with the mud below. He ducked carefully away from low-hanging trees for fear that one of his large wings would catch on a gnarled branch... again. The last time had been terribly unpleasant, and he had lost quite a few feathers; luckily, angels couldn't feel pain, or he was sure he would have been in a lot if it. Quatre stood out among the blackened trees like a snowflake, and a mist of ethereal light seemed to perpetually surround him, aiding to his out-of-place appearance. Death-sama had promised that this forest wasn't too wide, but Quatre was beginning to think the contrary. How long had he been dodging fallen logs and low branches? Much too long, and there was still no sign of leaving these woods. Hopefully they'd be back in a civilized area soon. "Places to be? I was supposed to spend the next four days in that cell, Death-sama. I have nowhere to be for a while."  
  
Duo grinned brightly in response. "Well, great! You can hang out with Heero and me and the group, then we'll drop you off at Heaven's doorstep, 'kay?" He once again glanced over his shoulder at Heero, who was walking silently with his head down a few steps behind them. Duo kept doing that: glancing over his shoulder to make sure Heero was still there. What, did he think the soul was just going to up and run away or something? It was possible, he supposed; souls occasionally did just run off, but with Heero, it didn't seem likely. So why was Duo acting so concerned? Maybe it was because of the way Heero was acting. Then again, a lot of souls acted that way. So what other reason could Duo have?  
  
Quatre's eyes lit up at the thought of being brought home. Heaven. He couldn't wait to get back there. Heaven is like a drug: it looks fine enough, but no one is particularly anxious to try it; after one hit, though, the user becomes immediately addicted, just waiting for the next dosage, craving it like air itself. Quatre had only been away from home for about an hour or so, and already he missed it desperately. He smiled at Duo at the fond remembrance of his home. "Heaven doesn't have a doorstep."  
  
Grinning, Duo elbowed Quatre's arm, "Well then, we'll just have to slip you through the mail slot." The angel laughed, and the sound seemed to brighten the mood of the entire forest for a few seconds, before it faded back to a dreary grey.  
  
There was another uneasy silence between the two. Duo's mind kept wandering away from conversation topics, and Quatre was too unsure of himself to bring up anything. So they walked onward, their expressions falling once more to match the gloomy woods around them. After a few more minutes of silently sliding between slick branches and thorn bushes, Quatre turned his head once more to face his guide. "Death-sama?"  
  
"Hm?" He turned slightly, his expression open, friendly, yet slightly distracted.  
  
"Where did you leave the other souls? I mean," Quatre clarified, "Are they far from here?" Not that Quatre minded walking through the filthy swamp of a forest all that much. He was fine with the creatures with glowing eyes that would stare at their group, hiss, then scamper back into the forest depths. He could stand the strange unidentifiable noises and moving shadows. He wasn't at all unnerved by the lack of light, abundance of unholy animals, or the fact that forests were rumored to be Satan's favorite hiding grounds, like giant mousetraps from Hell. ...On second thought, maybe Quatre minded a little more than he let on.  
  
Duo looked away from Quatre to scan the forest in front of them critically as if surmising the distance remaining. "I kind of had to deviate from my usual route to pick him," he nodded back to Heero, "up, so I left them at the spot where I turned off the path. A few more minutes in this direction and we should be back on a main road." Duo's smile faltered as he thought about his souls. A lot could've happened in an hour, and losing souls wasn't wholly uncommon. For some reason, souls tended to be very curious things, often straying from the path to Eternity for one reason or another and rarely finding their way back. He hated losing souls. It was like he had failed them by letting them leave. At least by delivering them to Hell they'd have closure. If you asked Duo, being lost and alone was worse than eternal pain and suffering. For the hundredth time, Duo glanced back over his shoulder, making sure Heero was still there. He was, of course, the soldier still plodding slowly forward with his head down as if being led to an execution. Duo frowned, just watching his dark-haired charge for a minute, then called back, "Hey, Heero?" The soul looked up in acknowledgment as the group continued walking slowly forward. "You okay?" Heero stared at him for a moment with emotionless blue eyes, then nodded and bowed his head again, never missing a step. Duo's brow furrowed a bit more. "You sure? You don't look okay. You look kind of... out of it." Quatre glanced back over his shoulder to see what Duo had meant. Heero looked the same as he had ever since they stepped out of the base: depressed, cold, confused, and lifeless. Then again, maybe that's why Duo was worried.  
  
"I'm fine." The curt reply came, Heero not even glancing up to answer.  
  
"Heero?" He looked up again as Quatre's soft voice called him. The angel's eyes were deep and caring, his face a picture of well-meaning concern. "Are you sure you're all right?" His voice echoed the concern in his features, and Heero had an overwhelming sense that Quatre knew exactly what was wrong and was simply giving him the opportunity to voice the problem. Looking at the angel's caring features made Heero want to start talking and never stop, confessing every fear, every doubt; he felt like dropping onto his knees before the holy creature and begging forgiveness he couldn't possibly deserve. He felt like, like confessing his sins. Like... repenting.  
  
The feeling scared him out of his mind.   
  
The group had stopped without realizing it, and the two in front had turned fully to face the object of their concern. Heero quickly looked away. What the hell was happening to him? Why was he thinking like this? The two of them... it was them! These, creatures, these unreal immortal things... what were they doing to him? What was being dead doing to him? What was happening?! He was so confused, so impossibly confused again. Heero simply stood there, silently berating himself for anything and everything he could think of. This was so stupid; he was acting ridiculous! He was worried over nothing. Was he so weak now? He didn't want to talk to Quatre, to confess anything, so he wasn't going to. And even if he did, what would be the use? It was too late. What good would it do but to make him look like a fool? Feeling the thick silence, knowing they were waiting for him to do or say something, Heero finally forced himself to look up. He met Quatre's intensely worried gaze for only a moment before he couldn't take the caring concern anymore, quickly shifting his sight to Duo, searching for a way out, an escape. At first he found something completely different. The glowing violet eyes of Death were like twin foaming seas of clashing emotions: love battling hate, caring fighting apathy, warmth struggling against coldness, and an intense joy being smothered by a pure despair. The only constant things in those eyes were concern, indecision, and (predominantly) passion, a glowing violet ring of passion centered around a black droplet of ink. After a full minute, Heero managed to tear his eyes away and stare at a nearby tree instead. "It's... different. I'm just not used to it. I'll be fine."  
  
Neither Quatre nor Duo believed this answer, but chose to accept it. If the soul didn't want to tell them what was bothering him, then that was his business. Quatre sighed, nodding. "All right, Heero. But I'm here if you want to talk, okay?" Heero nodded slightly, mentally scoffing. Talk with the angel? Yeah, right. How could the holy being understand? Besides, he'd probably end up jading the angel just by talking to him, Heero was so filthy with sin. Quatre accepted Heero's nod at face value. Slowly turning, he looked worriedly back over his shoulder once before resuming walking through the woods.   
  
Duo, however, glared at Heero until their eyes met, shouting at him, cursing him, all without saying a word. Then, he did what Heero least would have expected: he offered a way out. He allowed Heero to escape, pretending he couldn't see where the soul hiding. Duo smiled as if nothing were wrong. "Hey, don't worry about it. It gets easier being dead after a while. Take a few thousand years and you stop missing the pulse, even!" He laughed, eyes glowing with the emotion. "Not that I'd really know since I was never alive, but you get to know what being dead's like after you hang around with as many dead guys as I have." Duo winked, but Heero didn't respond. Heero was even more confused than ever, and this odd boy who called himself Death wasn't helping. Duo turned his back on Heero, pulling his hood back up as he did. He began walking forward once more, his horse trotting loyally along side its master like a trained dog. Quatre followed silently, and Heero followed behind him. Thus the group began slowly walking to the main road once more, ever closer to the many souls that would accompany them on the long and tiring journey ahead.  
  
***  
  
After about a half-hour more of silently trooping through the wet roughage, they finally approached the main road. The street was nearly empty, the black asphalt lit by the sporadic street lamps, and hardly any cars were on the road. Everything was surrounded in a smothering embrace of after-midnight silence. The street was lined with factories and offices, not a single residential house in sight. It was cold and mechanical, completely unfriendly. On one side of the wide sidewalk stood a large group of people. They blended together, their faces becoming indistinct by the sheer multitude of them. Hundreds of men, women, and children of varying ages and races clustered together, a few whispering to each other, the majority looking around uneasily.  
  
Duo strode to the front of the group and remounted his horse, trotting it once around in a circle as he surveyed his many charges. "We all here?" Not expecting an answer and assuming the positive (since he could do very little about the negative), he continued. "Sorry it took so long, errands and all that. But now we'll be getting on our way again, straight on from here. No more planned stops 'till we get you guys to Heaven. Sound good?" Once again not waiting for an answer, he pulled his horse to the right and pushed it into a light trot, the group following him in one large mass like a fat slug. Quatre and Heero paused at the edge of the forest, glancing around at their new traveling companions. The souls looked dead in every meaning of the word. Their eyes were dull and full of sadness, their hair was slick and heavy as if they had been caught in a rain shower (which, most likely, they had). Even their clothing seemed to be various shades of blacks, blues, and grays, literally hanging off the thin figures. Most of them looked sickly or old (probably because that's how they were when they had died), but not one of them bore any mark of death: no injuries at all. Every so often, however, there was someone who obviously didn't belong in the group of wretched weary people; there was a man of about forty with strong limbs and a sharp look in his eye. There was a woman who looked to be about 50, looking around suspiciously, eyeing everyone around her with contempt. There was a small blonde child of about seven, staring up at the sky with curious wide eyes. There was even a dog trailing along, an old greyhound that was thin and gaunt with a large "80" shaved into the fur of its side. There were a few others who stood out, and there was Heero.  
  
Exchanging glances from their post near the outskirts of the forest, Quatre nodded at Heero, smiling reassuringly. Heero watched the angel mentally prepared himself for whatever he felt was coming and then hover toward the side of the crowd and pick up conversation with an old, dreary-looking man there. The two began talking in hushed voices, Quatre smiling sadly. Heero stood alone a moment longer, then slowly followed behind the last of the group, once more walking with his head down and arms crossed. Lost in a web of thoughts, he idly watched the stones in the pavement as he stepped on them, barely noticing as the occasional car or truck whizzed by. He looked into every puddle he passed, slowing his steps to gaze for a long time at the reflection there. There was no reflection. The only thing he saw in those mocking puddles was the grey sky over him and the chalky color of the sidewalk below. He had no reflection. Nothing. Well, why should he? He didn't exist anymore. He wasn't real anymore. None of this was real. It was all some sort of illusion, like a dream. So if it he wasn't real, why did it all hurt so much? Pulling his eyes away from the mind-numbing puddles, Heero glanced up to stare at the faces around and in front of him. Heero didn't think he recognized any of them. What's more, when he accidentally bumped into an older woman who stopped suddenly, she turned and mumbled apologies to him in what sounded like a heavily accented Spanish; apparently, death really was universal. Still, considering the small amount of people in this group, it was hard to believe that everyone who had died in the past week was there, or even the past day. So where were the souls of the other hundreds of people? He'd have to remember to ask Duo later. However, this wasn't what was in the forefront of Heero's mind. Heero was thinking about much grimmer topics: like where they were going. Maybe this was just the group going to Hell? No, Duo had said they would stop when they reached Heaven. Maybe this was only the group going to Heaven? Impossible. Heero wasn't going to Heaven; he knew he wasn't. He wasn't exactly a religious individual, but he'd read most of the bible, and even if there was a slim chance of going to Heaven, he would be rejected immediately. They made it pretty clear that "Thou shalt not kill, or thou shalt go straight to hell." So why were they going to Heaven if they couldn't get in? Was this some form of eternal punishment?  
  
See but not touch? Pine for the feel of the holiness of it, the purity but cannot be sated? That sounded like torture if Heero had ever heard it.  
  
In his musings, Heero accidentally bumped into another person who chose to stop at an inappropriate moment for no apparent reason. The two simultaneously muttered apologies (in English, this time), and when Heero looked up to see whom he had collided with, his eyes went wide. A man no older than thirty stood there in a deep green military uniform. Heero inhaled sharply: an enemy uniform. The uniformed man narrowed his eyes, squinting at Heero for a moment, then his eyes went wide with recognition. He shouted in repulsion, "Hey, you're the terrorist!"   
  
Heero took a few steps backward, unable to say anything. What could he say? This, this man... he-- he wasn't real! He couldn't be real! None of this was real! His enemy took a few steps closer, both of them ignoring that the longer they stood still, the further they were being left behind. "You were in that machine, weren't you?" The man accused sharply. "Don't deny it! I saw your picture on that report! You're the pilot of that-- that monster, that huge white thing with green eyes!" Again, Heero simply swallowed, stepping back slightly. This--This wasn't real; this wasn't real; this wasn't-- Eyes blazing, the man shouted, "You're the little fucker that killed me!"  
  
***  
  
Quatre had been flitting from person to person, careful to warn everyone he spoke to to kindly not touch him. They were surprisingly understanding, and, after speaking with them, Quatre found most of them to be nice individuals. He didn't understand why humans had such a bad reputation. Every soul he had ever spoken to was considerate and humble, albeit often depressed. None of them seemed capable of doing the awful things he had heard about that were rumored to have happen on Earth. He couldn't picture any of these soft-spoken souls as adulterers, killers, thieves, or criminals. It just wasn't possible. They were sad, maybe, misunderstood, perhaps, but not evil! Did any of them really deserve to go to Hell? In Quatre's mind, the answer was a definitive "no." If it were up to Quatre, however, Hell would be nearly empty.   
  
Right now, the angel was hunched over slightly, talking to a very tiny soul: one of the ones who had stood out immediately; the girl he was speaking to looked no older than six or seven, her long blonde hair pulled back into a high ponytail and secured with a pink clasp. They talked about the girl's favorite classes at school and all the teachers she didn't like. Quatre spoke about Heaven and all the wonderful people there. They discussed what pets went to Heaven and why Quatre didn't have a halo. They talked about everything that came to mind... almost. They didn't talk about "the accident," and Quatre didn't push the subject. He was curious, of course, but when he had asked gently, "Do you remember what happened before you met Death-sama?" The girl had responded barely above a whisper.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Quatre had frowned, wishing he could hug the girl, stroke her hair and tell her that everything was okay. "Do you want to talk about it?"   
  
The child had shaken her head, not wiping away the tears that were falling, simply because she couldn't feel them on her cheeks. "Nu-uh." The angel had nodded and quickly changed the subject to happier topics.   
  
Still, he wondered...  
  
***  
  
Heero looked over the uniformed man's shoulder; the group was receding. If he didn't hurry up, he'd lose them all together.  
  
"I got a wife, bastard!" The man shouted down at Heero, gaining the younger boy's full attention once more. "She's a beautiful thing! And a son! My little boy! Three years old next month!"  
  
Unable to help it, Heero's mind retorted, "And? Your point?" But he remained silent, simply taking the verbal abuse with stoic apathy.  
  
As if hearing the silent question the enraged soul continued, "He's got no dad now because of you, mother fucker! How the hell is his mother supposed to explain that? Huh?! Some punk kid decided he didn't like the government anymore? Well? Don't just stand there! Answer me, son of a bitch! What the hell did I do to you?! What the hell did my little boy do to you?!"  
  
Heero remained expressionless, still not replying. Frankly, no matter what the man said, he didn't care. He honestly couldn't care less. He tried to be sympathetic, he tried to be upset, but he couldn't even force himself to. In fact, the strength of his apathy almost scared him. He SHOULD care; he knew he should. He should beg this man for forgiveness. Or, on the other hand, he should shout back his own problems of, "Your child's lucky he has a mother at all. I didn't!" or, "Be glad you lived to see twenty. I didn't get that much!" or, "It's not like I killed you because I felt like it. I didn't fight for myself, and, unlike you, I had no family to fight for. Instead, I fought for the men who told me to fight. I fought for 'a greater cause' just like you, only I fought by myself! My reasons for fighting were just as valid as yours, if not more so! In war, you should be prepared to die at any time, regardless of how many wives, children, uncles or cousins you have. As a soldier, you should have understood that before even being handed a gun." In fact, he should've done anything but just stand there silently. But he couldn't. He just didn't care enough. "What's the point in arguing?" He muttered, almost inaudibly. "It won't change anything."  
  
The man stood there, gaping in shock. The kid didn't even care?! No! The killer had to pay! That kid ruined-- no, ended his life! Anger burning him to the core, the taller man pulled back his fist and punched as hard as he could, slamming his fist into the side of Heero's face with a sickening smack. The younger soul fell backwards, landing on his side in a conveniently placed puddle. Before Heero could even stand up, the man glowered down. "I hate you!" He screamed, accenting the words with a vicious kick at the fallen boy's stomach. "I hate you!" He kicked again, "I hate you!" and again, "I hate you!" to prove his hate, trying to stop his own pain by causing someone else's as tears made his eyes cloudy. He finally stopped kicking, satisfied that Heero was flat on his face in the muddy puddle of water, unmoving and bleeding. "You're gonna burn. You hear me?" He leaned forward, shouting at the prone form, "You're gonna BURN, mother fucker! Burn in fucking Hell!" He glared at the terrorist, trembling with anger, then spat on him. "Fuck you." He turned sharply on his heel, and began jogging off in the direction he had come.   
  
Heero remained staring into the puddle's depths, the man's words muffled by the water filling his ears. After a few more minutes of silently lying there, he sat back on his heels, looking impassively into the water below as droplets of the liquid fell from his nose, chin, and hair: droplets he couldn't even feel running down his face. He sat staring for a long time. "No reflection." He muttered, splashing the water around a bit with his fingers, as if stirring it would unearth his buried image. A few minutes more passed, and he finally noticed that some of the droplets from his face were scarlet, plopping into the puddle water and spreading in dull little red clouds. Heero recognized the stuff anywhere. "Blood. Mine?" He looked down at his hands. They were still pale and clean. Lifting one to his face, he ran two shaking fingers down his cheek, unable to feel his own fingertips. He stared at them for a while, gazing at them with confusion, longing, sadness, and untouchable pain. "Blood. I'm bleeding. How am I bleeding? I don't have a heartbeat." His hands moved to clutch his stomach, and he looked down, noticing the blood there for the first time. It didn't hurt. It should hurt. Blood doesn't come without pain. He wasn't real, though. He was dead! How was he bleeding? How was this possible? It wasn't! It wasn't physically possible. It went against the laws of science.   
  
Duo. Duo would know. Duo knew everything. Duo could explain this.   
  
Heero looked up, then looked around frantically. Nothing but empty streets met his inspection. They left. They left him there, bleeding, dead. They left him. He was alone.  
  
He was alone.   
  
Heero looked back down, glaring at the non-reflection in the puddle. He swatted at it angrily, watching the water splash the sidewalk. But the anger fled him all too quickly, and he was empty again. He didn't even have his own emotions for company. The puddle stirred once, twice, again, and Heero noticed it had begun raining anew. So what? What did he care? He couldn't feel the water falling on him; he couldn't catch pneumonia. Wait, he could bleed; did that mean he could die all over again? Was it possible to die once already dead? Who knew what could happen? Well, Duo knew, but Duo wasn't here... wasn't here. He was alone.  
  
Sighing, he stood up on shaking knees, looking around. He picked a direction, hoping it was the right way, and began walking quickly. Soon, he had dropped his head down once more and watched the sidewalk slowly pass under his feet, his mind running in circles. He was alone again, as always, alone. He was lost, really lost in this strange world where he had no reflection, no self. Did Duo even notice he was gone? Did he care? Of course not. No one cared. He was alone. And, he was loath to admit it, even to himself, but he was scared. He was alone and scared. Alone. Scared. Alone. Lost. Alone. Alone. So alone. Always alone. And lost. Lost: what a disgusting word. To lose, to be lost; the expressions could almost cause physical pain.  
  
He was lost again: a lost soul, a lost cause, lost.   
  
***  
  
They walked through the splattering rain for what seemed like hours. The group followed Duo down the main street: just one long straight path, never turning, never splitting, never-ending. The souls had no idea where they were going or how long it would take, but no one voiced this. It was stupid and it was irrational, but they were all still at least slightly afraid of Death. They had been afraid of death their whole mortal lives; it was human instinct. And even after dying, it was a hard concept to simply let go of. So no one spoke, and no one raised his voice above a whisper across the hushed wet sidewalk for fear the black-cloaked man with "the whirlpool eyes" might be listening.  
  
The little girl, who had introduced herself with a whispered name of "Silvia," seemed attached to Quatre, following the angel wherever he went. Quatre had dropped back in the group to talk to other souls, but Silvia had followed, so the angel had given in. She found the older blonde boy, the only bit of shining light in this dark place, like a night-light and was following him to protect herself from the monsters that hid in the shadows. Silvia kept her eyes on him even while walking, only occasionally pausing to glance up at the sky and watch the fat rain drops fall on her cheeks. The girl looked up at Quatre, watching his comforting blue eyes, then glanced down at her feet as she was walking. She watched her feet as they took unsteady steps. It was funny walking. She hadn't walked in a long time. She wanted to run, though. She missed running. She missed playing in the school yard. Maybe she could play soccer again now? No, all of her friends were alive; she couldn't play with them anymore. She hoped they were okay. She missed her friends. She missed her TV. She didn't miss her teachers. But she missed her parents. She really missed her parents.  
And she missed her daddy's peanut-butter sandwiches. "Quatre?"  
  
The angel smiled, looking warmly down at the little girl beside him. "Yes, Silvia?"  
  
"When can I go home?" Silvia was watching her feet walk again, marveling at them. They didn't hurt at all. They were walking. When she got home, she'd have to walk for her parents and show them that she hadn't needed that stupid surgery all along. They'd laugh, her mommy would smile again. Then they'd all sit down to dinner in the kitchen, and she'd drink her milk like she was always told to, but she wouldn't complain this time. And since she would be so good and everyone would be happy, maybe they'd have chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles! Yeah, going home would be good. She couldn't wait!  
  
Quatre sighed under his breath, feeling a wash of pity and longing run over him. "You're coming with me to a new home."  
  
The blonde girl frowned up at Quatre. "I don't want a new home. I want MY home."  
  
The angel nodded, closing his eyes, but continued walking. "I know, honey, I know; but don't worry, you'll like your new home. It won't be the same, but it won't be bad, either. You'll be happy there."  
  
Silvia looked back at the ground in front of her. "I want my mommy and daddy." Quatre looked down empathetically, unable to form an appropriate reassurance for the child. The girl muttered again. "I want to go home."  
  
Smiling sadly, Quatre replied softly, "Me too."  
  
During the following pause in their conversation, Quatre looked up, his eyes shifting through the groups of souls. Something felt... wrong, off somehow. He continued scanning the souls until he realized what exactly it was he was feeling: Heero. Heero was missing. Feeling a clenching in his heart that he had lost the one person he had been sent to protect and take care of, Quatre quickly excused himself from the girl's presence. The child reluctantly concurred, and Quatre flew up to the front of the group as calmly as he could manage. He paused, batting his feathery white wings to keep himself up at eye-level with Duo who was still on his black steed.  
  
Duo glanced over at the angel, his bright eyes obscured by the deep shadow of his overly-large hood. "Something wrong, Quatre? You se--"  
  
"It's Heero!"  
  
Duo jerked the reins unconsciously, his horse exhaling sharply in annoyance. "What?"  
  
"Heero's gone!"  
  
***  
  
The voices started again.   
  
He was so close, so close to being done with them! But no, no, they came back to haunt him. Why?! He'd never heard voices in his entire life until he was thrown in that stupid cell! Did he go insane that night? This night. Was that only a few hours ago? It felt like years. Maybe it was still the drugs affecting him. Did medication transcend death? Did insanity, for that matter? He didn't know; he didn't care! He just wanted it to stop, to stop the yelling in his head! Heero began running, running, running, not stopping. This time, though, he had a destination, an answer that was just out of reach, and Heero was determined to get to him. The voices, though, so many voices spoke to him at once. His feet pounded across the pavement, oblivious to the splashing of puddles.  
  
"It gets easier being dead after a while."   
  
"Duo." Heero muttered, the humid air puffing out of his mouth and into the rain.  
  
"I'm here if you want to talk, okay?  
  
"Never." He scowled bitterly.  
  
"You're gonna burn. You hear me?"  
  
"I hear you. Shut up."  
  
"So... we have a deal?"  
  
"Lost, so lost."  
  
"Actually, you're not quite human anymore..."  
  
"What am I, Duo?"  
  
"Are you sure you're all right?"  
  
"I'm not sure of anything any more, Quatre."  
  
"You're gonna BURN, mother fucker! Burn in fucking Hell!"  
  
"I know! Okay?! I know. Just leave me alone!"  
  
"I'll be seeing you shortly, Mr. Yuy."  
  
"Stop smirking at me! I can hear you smirking! Stop-- stop looking at me! I can feel it. Stop it!"  
  
He kept running, shouting back responses. He knew it wouldn't do any good, but he couldn't help himself. Maybe he really was crazy. One thing was for sure, though: he may never have been able to outrun those voices, but he always got in the last word.  
  
***  
  
Duo turned quickly in his saddle, eyes blazing across the group of souls, barely looking at them. Without even pausing long enough to study individual faces, he knew Heero wasn't there. Death slumped forward, leaning against his horse's thick black neck. "Ah shit."  
  
Quatre began wringing his hands, the words rushing unconsciously out of his mouth. "I-- I don't know what happened! One minute he was walking there right behind everyone else, looking upset as usual, and the next minute, I look, and he's not there! I don't know where he could've gone!" The angel buried his head in his hands, whispering self-pities. "I'm so sorry, Heero. This is all my fault."  
  
"No, it's not, Quatre. You can't blame yourself." Sighing, Duo sat up. "It happens all the time."  
  
Turquoise eyes wide, Quatre looked questioningly up at Duo. "It does?" The darkly-clad boy nodded. "And you don't even care?!"  
  
Still glaring straight ahead, Duo replied, "I do care, but there's nothing I can do about it. Look, I'm sure Heero had a reason for leaving. They always do. And if he wants to come back, then he will. You can control bodies, even minds, but not souls."  
  
Quatre bit his lip, landing lightly on the cool ground and began walking again, shaking his head. "I'm worried for him, Death-sama."  
  
Duo just stared straight ahead as if completely intent on his destination. "I know. But we can't wait for him. Let's go." His mind whispered encouragement, "Got to move on. Got to keep walking. No turning back. Got to be strong. Death can't pity. Death doesn't have that option. Death can't care about the individual, only about the whole." He nudged his horse forward and the group began walking once more. Next to him, Quatre looked bewildered. Duo smiled brightly. "We'll be at the first gates soon, and from there it's not that far to Heaven."  
  
Nodding dumbly, Quatre whispered, "Yes. Heaven." but he hadn't really heard what Duo'd said.  
  
***  
  
The senseless phrases and painful words had continued in Heero's head in any random order: poking at him, telling him how confused he was, how utterly lost. It was the voices' purpose to confuse him, to make him as mentally lost as he was physically.  
  
The voices were winning.   
  
They had rambled on in circles the entire time he was running, slowly falling like sugar through a sift, as one by one faded out of Heero's mind, overpowered by one solid, mind-numbing voice. The one voice remained like the last clump of sugar that refused to slide through. Like talking to a skipping record, Heero held a conversation with the voice, never pausing in his intent running. The road before him seemed to stretch on forever. Was he even going in the right direction? It didn't matter as long as he kept running. He couldn't stop, not when he had somewhere to go. Hope drove him forward, a dull, throbbing hope.  
  
"Take a few thousand years and you stop missing the pulse, even!"  
  
"You promise? I don't think I'll ever stop missing it."  
  
"No offense, but what you think doesn't matter."  
  
"It doesn't, does it." He muttered, rather than asked, forlornly. "I'm sorry."  
  
"I forgive you."  
  
"You shouldn't. I don't deserve it."  
  
"We all here?"  
  
"No, I'm not. My mind is gone. It's lost, Duo. I'm lost, very lost."  
  
"Hey, Heero? You okay?"  
  
"No, I'm lost."  
  
"Heero?"  
  
"I'm alone, Duo."  
  
"You sure?"  
  
"I'm always alone."  
  
And then there was only one voice, over and over again: his own. "Alone. Alone. Alone." The litany continued, matching his heavy footsteps. Then, abruptly, the word changed. "Run."  
  
Heero stopped sharply in his tracks. Quickly, he brought his hands up in front of his face; with frantic eyes, he scanned across his hands as they shook: no chains. He ran his hand across his chest: nothing, no heart beat. He exhaled for the sake of it. He was dead. He still wasn't real... was this a comfort? He looked up, squinting at the horizon. Was-- no. No, that-- Was that the group ahead? Could it be? Oh, God, let it be them! He would never be more happy to see anyone in his entire life, just let Duo be right there! He was so close to not being alone again! He started running again, sprinting as fast as he could without falling over from the numbness of his own feet. "Must not be alone. Been alone too long. Must not be lost. Been lost too long." He spoke to the air in front of him, talking to the thin rain drops, anything to keep from hearing more voices. Duo's voice or not, he hated them, hated those voices! They made him feel like he was more alone than ever. Besides, it was a voice that got him into this mess...  
  
***  
  
"And to your immediate right you'll see a fence." Duo grinned, gesturing to the large metal fence next to him. "No flash photography, and please, hold your applause."   
  
The group had finally stopped where the road had ended. Now, their path was blocked by an impossibly large fence: its links were too close to slip through, and it seemed to stretch on forever in all directions: left, right, and even up. No one could see where the fence ended; it seemed to go up and up, melting into the rainy grey sky itself. Beyond the fence was an equally large building. It appeared to be an old factory of some kind, the bricks made colorless from years of nature and human nature's ire alike. Although it seemed to be a long ways off behind the fence, some souls could just make out the telltale signs of graffiti and broken windows. The building stood like a giant made of stone, towering over the land and casting an oppressive grey shadow over everything in the vicinity. Seen through the rusting fence, the building was even more intimidating. As a final crowning glory to the royal edifice, there hung a large sign on the fence out front, slightly askew in its perch. Once white, the metal plate was grey and red with a combination of years of rusting and gathering dirt, but the crisp black letters had remained thick and glossy, as if untouched by time. In bold, it read what the building's condition obviously stated clearly: "condemned."  
  
Duo smirked looking at his souls' expressions. It always amused him how they reacted with such awe. The fence was just a gateway, nothing special. There were tons of them around (tons meaning six), and Duo, personally, thought the gate to Hephess was much more worthy of their astonishment. Of course, being the owner of said gate could've made him a bit biased. Well, perhaps just a bit... Shrugging to himself, he announced to the souls, "Welcome to the Gates of Limbo. Please keep all belongings tucked in the overhead compartment and fasten your safety belts as we prepare for landing. Thank you, and follow me!" Grinning, he maneuvered his horse through the fence.  
  
The group watched with fascination as Death faded through the barrier and didn't appear on the other side. It was as if in the second he had gone through the fence, he had disappeared. Without hesitation, Quatre followed him through, gesturing the child, Silvia, to follow along behind him; trusting whom she had dubbed "my guardian angel," Silvia followed quickly as she was asked. After a few moments of contemplation, one older man stepped forward, slipping his hand, then his whole arm, then half his body, then finally his head through the fence. He came back out with an astonished smile, tugging on the hand of the soul behind him. He spoke to her in fluent Russian, then walked back through, pulling the woman behind. The woman, in turn, grasped onto the man behind her, and the chain of grabbing a hand and pulling went on. Eventually, all hesitancy was gone, and the rest of the group disappeared through the fence in rapid succession, leaving the cold rainy plain behind them, most likely for good.  
  
***  
  
About two minutes later, Heero ran up, nearly colliding with the chain-link fence. He slammed his heels into the ground, ending up with his nose nearly touching a foreboding "condemned" sign. He fell back a few steps, shaking. "Condemned? It doesn't-- It could-- Oh, the building." Collecting his thoughts, Heero scanned the building and its fence with his eyes for a minute, observing that the fence was too high to climb, too far to walk around, and without any visible entrance or gaps large enough for a person his size to slip through. But they had gone this way! He had seen them come in this direction! The only way had to be up. Heero looked up; it was certainly a long way. It would be worth it, though. Nodding to himself, he reached a hand out to grab the chain links that made up the fence, but found he couldn't; instead, his hand passed straight through. The air on the other side seemed to get thicker and rested on his hand like a blanket. Heero quickly pulled his hand out and stared at it incredulously. It didn't look any different, and if he could've felt it, he assumed it would have felt normal. Frowning, Heero's mind ran this over for a minute; deciding it was worth a try, he ducked his head and stepped forward, passing completely through the fence in a few steps.  
  
When he stepped completely through, the first thing he noticed was the smell or, rather, the lack of one. "Outside" has a certain smell to it. Rain has a smell; winter has a smell; cold has a smell. Here in... wherever he had just stepped into, there was no smell. None. The second thing he noticed was that the air felt heavy and stagnant, as if there were never wind here. Thirdly, he was unnerved to hear absolute silence all around. In the street, there were cars, flickering lamp lights, various animals and bugs, and occasionally living people all making various sounds. Wherever Heero was, though, there was nothing, not even the rustle of leaves.   
  
Then, Heero realized that his eyes were still closed, and he opened them, looking around. He had expected to see the factory in front of him, the fence behind. He had expected the moon and stars in the sky to be above. He had expected the thick black pavement to be beneath his feet. What he had not expected, however, was that none of that would be there to greet his eyes. There was nothing. In front of him for miles on end was a blank sheet of absolute white. To his right and left was the same emptiness. There were no plants, no trees. There was no sky, there wasn't even a ground. It defied logic. Even in the fog, the ground is still visible; but here he was in an entirely still place that was reminiscent of being caught in a blizzard without a single sign of the falling snow. His brain started panicking. He was alone. Really alone. When he had thought he couldn't BE more alone, it had happened! Turning around quickly, Heero glared at where he had just come from, his mind screaming to see the fence, to see the street he had just walked down, to see anything familiar! The screams went unanswered. Behind him was the same as in front: endless nothing. No, wait, there was something a few feet in front of him, something fairly small, rectangular, and metallic looking. He took a few steps forward and squinted before realizing exactly what it was. It was that sign, looking as new as the day it was manufactured, and written backwards on it were glossy black letters that, as seen from the other side, spelled the chilling word, "condemned." It was a pun. Seen from one side, it had a completely different meaning than from the other. How amusing. Whoever made this thing had an annoyingly ironic sense of humor. Heero shuddered.  
  
Suddenly, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Heero flinched and spun around, coming face-to-face with another expanse of nothingness: this one black, like looking into a shadow cast on a lake at night. The hand on his shoulder lifted and pushed against the black nothingness to reveal a bright face with a huge smile and glowing violet eyes. "Duo." Heero exhaled.  
  
"Hey, Heero!" Duo's smile faltered as he noticed the blood, but only for a second before he was smiling again. "Welcome back!" He smirked, his mind shouting, "Told you so." in Quatre's general direction. "But, uh, you're going in the wrong direction, pal." Duo grinned, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Heaven's that way." Heero glanced over Duo's shoulder and noticed the entire rest of the group was there, slowly walking toward where Duo had gestured. Somehow, Heero hadn't noticed them standing there before; he guessed he had just been too caught up in shock of the vast whiteness of it all.  
  
"Whe--." Heero cleared his throat until he was sure his voice wouldn't falter again. "Where are we?"  
  
"Limbo." Duo said obviously, still grinning, relief that Heero was back almost rolling off him in waves. "Remember? Expanse between Heaven, Hell, and Hephess? You're standing in it." Heero glanced back behind himself, once more staring at the backwards sign. The letters burned themselves into his mind until he saw the inverse of them every time he closed his eyes. Duo took in Heero's expression for a minute, then tossed a black-sleeved arm around the soul's shoulders and began pulling him away. "C'mon, I've got a schedule to keep and we're running late as it is. Don't want you to get lost again just 'cause you were standing here, staring at a gate all day, now do we? I mean, I know the gates are interesting and all, but we've got place to be, things to do, books to sign, and all that." Duo rambled on as he walked quickly, dragging Heero along.  
  
"Books to sign?" Heero interrupted hesitantly. That didn't sound like a good thing. In fact, Heero almost shuddered thinking about it.  
  
Duo shrugged, one arm still around his temporary captive, holding him close as if afraid Heero would run when he let go. "Yeah, but don't worry about that; you'll know what I mean when we get there." Heero muttered under his breath, but Duo chose to ignore it. Soon, the two were back in the group, although Duo had steered Heero (more like dragged him) to the front where he could "keep on eye" on the wandering soul. After Quatre had fussed over Heero's bloody face and Heero had assured the angel that he was "fine," the group picked up walking again, ever closer to their next destination. Duo rambled on about nothing and everything all at once, stealing glances at his quiet companion. Heero's mind was elsewhere, though; he couldn't seem to get that shining "condemned" sign out of his thoughts. It had been burned into his eyelids, and when he blinked, the bright white letters were clear and glowing against a deep velvety black background. The bold letters, proudly proclaiming "CONDEMNED," seemed to shout at him more than any voice had yet.  
  
Heero laughed bitterly. Condemned, huh? Yes, he certainly was. 


	3. Crawling

A/N - double slashes ("//") state what time period it is. This is used to distinguish between flashbacks and "present" day. Flashbacks aren't necessarily a character's memories here; they're used to give the reader a bit of a history lesson. Hence, they will not be in first person limited.   
-If there are no double slashes (like there hasn't been for the past two chapters), assume it's the "present" of AC195.  
  
Chapter 3: Crawling  
  
To most people, walking is exhilarating: an activity to enjoy, to treasure. The feel of each muscle working together under sweaty skin is something they savor; the race of an exerted heart is a trophy for them. The wind gently gliding through their hair frees their minds, tossing away their worries, their stress, and leaving only their legs, their lungs, and the road before them. Moving forward, gaining ground, going somewhere: this is an accomplishment for those people. Yes, they enjoy the simplicity of a walk down the street. However, those people are in the realm known as "Human," not lost in a mist of white named "Limbo." They have road markers and scenery for companions; they are not walking down an unending road of white with no sidewalk, no pavement, no traffic. They are led by the will of their hearts and the strength of their legs; they are not blindly following a boy named Death mounted on a horse as black as burned coal, both with eyes of glowing violet fire. But most importantly, those living humans know where they are going and, no matter how long it takes them, no matter how many turns the road takes, they know they will be there eventually; the souls that wander Limbo do not have this luxury. Those souls can never be fully sure of their final destination, and that frightens them to no end. Walking is, indeed, a task to be enjoyed; and so, what the souls that followed Death that morning were doing could not be called walking. Time crawled by for them agonizingly slow, and they crawled with it, dreading each second that followed the last. Slowly, softly, hesitantly, they crawled ever-closer to the Gates of Heaven, unknowing if that final destination would be their own.  
  
Heero crawled with them, lost in a sea of indecision and hopeless confusion. He had once known so much. Others had envied the amount of knowledge he had held. If one had asked him a question, they had received a prompt and entirely correct answer, no matter what the subject. Heero had known everything. And yet, Heero had known that death was an escape; he had been sure of it. When the physical life signs end, so does the activity in the brain. Dying is a grand finale to thinking, to living. All his life, Heero had known that death was a necessary evil, an unavoidable eventuality, an ending. Because of this, he had never avoided death, never once feared it. He had known death was only the end of life, and with it, the end of pain. He had assumed that the end of a person's brain waves would signify the end of said person's confusion. It was only logical.   
  
He was wrong; everything was wrong. Death wasn't an escape from pain, it was merely an alteration of it. Instead of the physical pain he had known and had learned to cope with, now he had to deal with mental pain, emotional anguish: the sort of which Heero had never had to face before. He had never been as lost in life as he was right now in death. He had always known where he was going, why he was going there, and when he was due back. He had known simple things: (plants were green, the sky was blue, and space was black; life was the beginning of suffering, and death the end of it) common truths he had taken for granted. He had known so much! Now, he was dead. Now, depending on who had been lying to him and who had been speaking truth, Heero was supposed to be a mindless corpse, buried six feet underneath a mound of dirt and being digested slowly by various insects, or his soul was supposed to be in Hell. Either way, he was supposed to be at peace in one form of the word or another: closure of some sort. He was definitely NOT supposed to be walking through a field of white, listening to Death, being watched by an angel, and hearing a demonic voice!   
  
Next to him, Death rambled on, "...them. You know what I mean, Heero?" Heero nodded absently and continued with his thoughts. This was wrong. This was all wrong! He wasn't prepared for this; he didn't understand it. "Heero?" For the first time Heero could remember, there was something he didn't understand, couldn't understand. No, scratch that; there was more than one thing! There were hundreds of things! Thousands of questions plagued his mind. How was he thinking if he really was dead? How was he bleeding, for that matter? What was going to happen to him? Why was everything so empty here? Why was it taking so long to get there? Was he really going to Hell? Death was a boy his age, so what was the Devil? What was God? What was Heaven like? Was it really just plain white like Limbo was? Were-- Were his parents there? Would they remember him, recognize him? Would he recognize them? What were they like? How big WAS Heaven to hold all those people? Wait, was Duo still talking to him? To Heero, the mystery that was Duo was a million questions all on his own. He looked human, but was he? Why did he talk so much? Why did his eyes literally glow? How old was he, really? How did he become Death? And why in the world was someone nicknamed "The Grim Reaper" smiling so much?! "You listening?" There was so much Heero didn't know, so much he couldn't learn! It was driving him insane! He was so confused, so hopelessly lost. It was horrible. If he had known that dying would be like this, this terribly frustrating, perhaps he WOULD have been afraid of it! "Hello? Heero?" He looked up, finally realizing that Duo had been calling his name. Glancing over, he was met with the same bright smile that had been unnerving him for minutes now. "You awake yet?"  
  
Nodding he answered, "Yeah." And looked back down at his feet, which were still walking. The white of the ground threatened to blind him with its monotony. "Just thinking." Actually, the reason he was thinking so much wasn't just that he was confused. Normally, when he had been confused, he'd found out the answer to the problem, and it had been over with. Now, though, Heero wasn't even trying to get answers. He knew he'd never know everything there was, the afterlife was just too new, too all-encompassing. It would take him years, maybe even lifetimes, to learn everything. No, the reason Heero was thinking so loudly was to drown-out the voice. Not Duo's, no, something worse, something much worse. That same voice, the one he had first heard in that cell, it was following him, taunting him, singing to him. Ah, another question to add to his list: why hadn't that damn voice gone away?!  
  
Duo looked forward, then to both sides, taking in the never-ending white for a minute as if he were looking at the scenery, then slid off his horse, landing softly on the white ground next to Heero. He nudged the soul to get his attention. "We've got a while left, so, c'mon. Spill." Heero just looked at him blankly, so Duo continued. "Well? What're you thinking about that's got you looking half awake?" The smile was still there, but subdued now. "Something bad, I bet from the look on your face."  
  
Heero suddenly wished he had a mirror to see how awful he looked, then bitterly realized that a mirror would be useless for someone without a reflection. Another question: why didn't he have a reflection? He could bleed, but not see the blood on his face. That was very wrong on so many levels. His scowl deepened, and he glared back down at the white nothingness, shrugging lightly. "It's nothing." His mind added bitterly, "Nothing I want to talk about."  
  
Sighing, Duo responded, "Heero, let me tell you something. It's never nothing. It might seem like it, but it's not. 'Nothing' in Limbo is always something." and stared back out at the path in front of him. Heero glanced at Duo warily from the corner of his eye. He spent a full minute pondering that riddle, before he gave up on it. "Just another unanswerable question," his mind retorted. He looked back at the white ground, thinking. The two continued walking steadily in silence over the soft white ground. Heero had yet to get used to the external silence and the internal racket. It was backwards; then again, everything here seemed backwards: bleeding souls, walking on nothing, a smiling Death. Everything. When would they get to Hell? Not that Heero was anxious for the torture, but he was desperate for anything familiar! What he'd give to see the fires of Hell... After about another minute of silent contemplation, Heero looked up slightly, staring at the white just below eye-level. There was one question that just continuously tormented him, one he truly wanted, no, needed an answer to. "Have you ever been to Hell?"  
  
Looking over at Heero, Duo scanned the soul's face for something, then he smiled despite what he saw. Duo shrugged, "Yeah, sure. I've been everywhere." He grinned. "You name it; I've been there." His mind muttered, "Death's everywhere." But he ignored the thought. Thoughts like that can be saved for more appropriate times. "Hell's gate is all right, a lot nicer looking than the inside, that's for sure. Guess appearances really are deceiving, eh? Heaven's gate is like that too, only backwards. I mean, Heaven's gate is pretty dull, but when you get inside? Whew, it's something to look at. Still, I say Hephess has the best gate out of them all. It's just plain awesome, if you ask me. But nobody ever asks me about the gate until AFTER they see it. Sure, THEN they want to know ALL about it." He paused, noticing that Heero was once again zoning off. He elbowed the soul lightly in the ribs again to get his attention, "Why do you ask?" Heero looked up, but before the soul could answer, Duo added, "And don't even think about shrugging my question off again. I've had enough shrugging from you to last me a few thousand years or so." His grin remained constant.  
  
What Duo had said was true; Heero had found himself shrugging a lot in the past half hour or so he'd been walking at the front of the group with the chatty Death. Well, he reasoned, he wouldn't have had to shrug so much if Duo would've just stopped asking him so many questions. Heero continued watching the white ground in front of him, tainted only by the view of his own sneakers. Fine, if Duo didn't want him to shrug, he'd lie again. It was becoming an odd habit of his: lying to Death. "Just curious." Heero regretted the words even as they were falling from his mouth. He felt Duo's eyes on the side of his face, like twin violet lasers burning straight through him. Duo knew he was lying, always knew. Heero didn't know how he did it, but Duo could tell when he lied. There's another question to add to the list, an unnerving one, at that. Heero hated this. Not only did he know absolutely nothing, but his traveling companion knew everything: including when Heero was lying. It was damn annoying.  
  
Smirking, Duo asked, "So why do you REALLY want to know?"  
  
Heero resisted the urge to sigh and instead responded in short phrases, finding it difficult to voice what he was dy-- anxious to ask. "Hell is... Is it... I mean, it's..." He paused, gathering his thoughts, then said quickly, "What's it like?" He wouldn't raise his eyes, instead glaring at the white before his feet like it was the most entrancing thing in the world.  
  
Duo leaned back as he walked, clasping his hands casually behind his head. "Fire, brimstone, snow, ice, torture, eternal damnation, blah, blah... Nothing interesting, if you ask me. Although, I try to steer clear of the place or the inside, at least. Satan and I don't exactly get along. I've never gotten along well with Satan. Come to think of it, neither do God and I. And it's pretty safe to say that they hate each other. Heh, we all basically avoid one another like the plague. I like to think of it as 'respect,' but it's probably just personal grudges. We've all had a number of past arguments that weren't pretty. Like this one time about, what was it, three hundre--"  
  
"Whoa, wait." Heero interrupted, staring at Duo with a curiously raised eyebrow. "Snow? In Hell? I thought..."  
  
Duo shrugged. "Yeah, you know, cold white stuff that falls from the sky in winter. Don't they have that where you come from or did you live near the Equator all your life?"  
  
Heero shook his head quickly, "No, no, I know what snow is. It's just," looking at Duo incredulously. "Snow in Hell?"  
  
Smiling at Heero, Duo asked, "Yeah, is that so hard to believe?" Seeing the confusion in Heero's face, he muttered. "Okay, I guess it is..." Duo smirked, "Yeah, well, the Bible mentions lots of fire and no snow, but the Bible also mentions flesh-eating worms, and I have yet to see a worm sin badly enough to end up in Hell." He laughed, shaking his head. "You just can't believe everything you read nowadays." Heero was giving him that look again: that "I'm confused, I'm thinking too hard, and I'm about to zone-off again" look. Duo nudged him in the shoulder playfully. "Oh, come on! Lighten up! Stop worrying so much. Hell is just a nasty place full of nasty things. Snow included. Bad climates left and right there. Pick an unpleasant environment, multiply it by five hundred percent or so, and you've found a section of Hell. Not a place you want to live. But I'm sure it's not something you have to worry about, so cheer up before you give yourself a migraine."  
  
Heero did the opposite, his frown deepening. He didn't even register as his eyes once again fell to the white ground. He liked to be prepared. He wasn't prepared for this Limbo place, and that's why he felt so lost. He didn't want to feel this way in Hell. He wanted to know what to expect when he got there. Duo wasn't helping. His descriptions were vague, at best, and for some reason, he seemed to believe that Heero wasn't going to Hell at all. Heero briefly wondered where the boy had gotten that idea... Yet ANOTHER unknown to add to Heero's ever-growing list of questions. Well, maybe Quatre could explain Hell in a bit more detail. Surely the angel knew what Hell is like, even if he hadn't physically been there, right? Heero glanced around and noticed Quatre was a few steps behind them now, still chatting with his newest admirer. What was her name? Silvia, right. Heero sighed, well, they would be no help. There was no way he was going to ask Quatre about Hell in front of a child and receive a decent answer. Heero hated children. They were rude, useless, dependent, and honest at the worst times; they got in the way, ruined everything, and, most of all, annoyed the hell out of him. The soul closed his eyes tightly at the thought, trying to clear the image of those wide, childlike eyes, those haunting eyes, and that chilling voice that was still teasing him, encouraging him. Why was he still hearing that voice?! He looked up frantically as another voice, a new one joined the first. "Oh no." He thought, cringing. "Not again. Not this again! Why is this happening to me?!"  
  
Duo glanced over at Heero, eyeing the soul warily. Something was wrong with him: Heero's eyes looked larger, wider: scared, almost. "Heero, are you all right?"  
  
His head whipped around at the sound of a third voice, but he calmed as he saw Duo looking at him. Quickly, he registered what Duo had said. "I'm fi--" But he couldn't get the word out, that second voice was whispering again, loudly. It sounded so close, almost right next to him. Heero quickly glanced at his shoulder. Nothing. Endless white. Still, they continued walking slowly forward. He sighed looking at the ground, trying not to listen to the voice. The things it said! It was giving him bad ideas, telling him lies. Why was this happening? "You're lying!" He growled out. Heero jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder, and he spun toward the owner.   
  
It was Duo, looking concerned again. "I didn't say anything, Heero."  
  
"I--" He started, glancing back over his shoulder, then back at Duo. "I-- I know. I thought-- I heard..." There was another voice now, joining with the other, both of them telling him the same thing in different words: telling him to run, before it was too late, telling him to get as far away from Death and the other souls as possible, telling him to lose himself to the Vast Nothingness of Limbo. They were telling him he was better off lost, better off without the group, better off without making it to Heaven or Hell: lies, all lies! They had to be lying; Heero didn't want to be lost again! He was lost enough as it was! "Nothing. Nothing," he muttered to himself. "I don't hear anything."  
  
Duo's eyes narrowed, his hand on Heero's shoulder tightening slightly. "Heero, what did I tell you about 'nothing' in Limbo?"  
  
The whispering, so many whispered words, which were real? Which should he listen to? One was telling him this, two were telling him that, and one... one was Duo. "What? I-- I don't remember."  
  
Duo let go of Heero's arm and halted suddenly, stopping the rest of the group. "Hey, Quatre!" A second later, the angel was by his side. "Do you see anything unusual?"  
  
Quatre looked around, shaking his head. "No, it all looks fine to me, Death-sama."  
  
He nodded. "Yeah, me too..." Duo continued glaring at his surroundings, eyes never pausing. "Heero says he hears something."  
  
"Hears something?" The angel's bright blue eyes blinked once in confusion. Heero cringed, wishing he were invisible. Great, now they all knew he was crazy. Damned voices. Why wouldn't they all leave him alone?! Quatre looked around for a minute, then a realization seemed to hit him and he looked over to Duo with questioning eyes. He whispered, "Ghosts?"  
  
Duo nodded solemnly. Quatre muttered, then jumped suddenly; he was now above the souls, flapping his wings to keep him in the air where the "ghosts" couldn't reach. Heero paused, the voices seeming to stop with the absurdity of the situation. He almost laughed, and the fact that Duo and Quatre were both looking and acting so seriously only made it seem funnier. "Ghosts?" He asked skeptically. "You're kidding." Duo turned to him, his face unusually grim.  
  
"Do you know what a ghost is, Heero?" Reluctantly, Heero shook his head. Sure, he THOUGHT he had known what a ghost was; he'd heard his share of stories about them, after all. A technical definition, though, was harder to come by. The only thing he could think of was, "A dead person's soul," but seeing how that could apply to himself now, it was obviously wrong. The whispering in his mind seemed to come back at full force, the "new" voices urging him to run now more than ever. He had to struggle to hear Duo's words over the voices. "Does ANYONE know what a ghost is?" None of the souls responded, though a few muttered. Heero vaguely noticed that some of his fellow souls were banging their palms against their heads or covering their ears. Did they hear the voices, too? Maybe he wasn't so crazy after all. Duo continued to speak loudly to the crowd, "Yeah, I thought not." Then, suddenly, his eyes flicked to the side, and he reached an arm out, grabbing with his fist at thin air. His arm flinched as he seemed to grab something invisible about the size of a human neck and held it firmly. "This," he called out, his hand shaking as if the invisible thing therein were struggling, "is a ghost. They're sneaky little invisible things, so allow me to turn a light on." His forearm started to glow the same shade of violet his eyes were, then the glow spread down his hand and across the invisible thing it held. The violet light turned into a thick purple substance, like jelly, as it hit the invisible thing and coated it from head to toe. The form looked like a young boy, no older than twelve, his hands trying to free himself from Duo's tight grasp around his neck.  
  
Heero's eyes widened as the boy's lips moved and no sound came out, yet he heard the words: in the form of another voice in his head. "No! Get off me! Help me, my friends, my fellow souls! I'm on your side; Death wants you brought to Hell! Will you let him bring you to Hell?! Save me! Save yourself by saving me! Help me! Help!" Heero took a few steps back and suddenly tripped over his own feet, or rather, over someone else's. Another voice called out, "Watch where you step, jerk!" And Heero quickly stood up, glaring around. He just got a little crazier, and a little more lost.  
  
Duo smirked at the boy in his hand, still speaking to the group. "Ghosts were once souls, like you guys. Then, they started hearing voices, other ghosts, that told them to run away from the group. They listened, ran away, and a few months later they ended up like this mass of invisibility you see here." Duo dropped the boy suddenly, who landed with a splat on the white ground. The ghost shook his hands off, bits of violet gel splattering off him. Looking down at him, Duo laughed. "Now, get lost." Heero heard hissing and booing, cat calls at the bad pun, but Duo simply smirked. The few souls who had yet to hear voices stared at Death as if he were crazy. Duo shrugged, grabbing the reins to his horse and pulling it along as he started walking. "Just ignore them." He called out to the souls behind him. "They'll go away eventually." Overhead, Quatre followed Duo, and, slowly the rest of the group was in tow.  
  
Heero paused to watch the poor ghost-boy, still half covered in purple goo, begin to run off, leaving sopping trails of violet light in the form of footprints. Then, Heero began walking after the group, more confused than ever, and just a little more paranoid. They were quieter, now, but the voices still unnerved him. They were just so convincing! One, sometimes two or three different voices, were all urging him to stray, giving him perfectly valid reasons to do so. But one voice, that ever-present child's voice was telling him to stay with the group, laughing at him for even considering leaving. Heero knew that voice wasn't a ghost. He had a feeling he knew what exactly that voice was, but the thought terrified him, so he attempted to ignore it. No one else seemed to hear that voice, either. In fact, Heero saw one soul from his group wander off, obviously believing what the ghosts told her.   
  
Duo noticed, too, as one of his souls ran off, but was forced to ignore it. Like he had once told Quatre: there was nothing he could do; if a soul wanted to leave, he was welcome to. Duo could simply show them the path, guide them to Eternity. He couldn't force them, even if he wanted to. And, most of the time, he wanted to. He was a guide, not a judge, and he could not make decisions like his fellow deities could. Well, he COULD, but he wasn't supposed to. Someone might get upset, and it's never wise to upset a deity...  
  
***  
  
//AD 1945//  
  
Duo lounged along the smooth edge of a large ornate fountain, dipping one hand into the grey water at his side. He stared into the water with a far-off expression, but his voice was hard and empty. "Welcome to Hephess, Satan-sama. It has been a while." He turned his head, unmoving from his perch, and grinned at his guest. "What took you?" The boy who had escorted the visitor in muttered an excuse, then backed away, his dark form seeming to fade into the shadows behind him. Death and Satan were alone in the large open room, eyeing one another uneasily.  
  
Satan was a tall man who looked no older than thirty. His fiery red hair was slicked back so that it shined, and though there was little light in the garden in which they stood, the glistening of his hair seemed to reflect flames. Dressed in a fine burgundy suit with a black silk shirt, he stood tall and rigid. One tan hand was rested languidly on his hip, the other in a fist at his side. His eyes, like Duo's, were literally glowing with energy, their burning red hue lighting his high cheeks. Those eyes, so full of life and knowledge, shined with something else: something deep, something to be afraid of, something evil. The man bowed slightly in acknowledgment of his fellow deity, and in response, Duo shrugged. The man raised an amused eyebrow, then asked in a suave voice, "May I sit?"  
  
Shrugging again, Duo spoke, his voice distant and apathetic. "Yeah, sure, pull up a chair." The taller man did just that: with a small puff of smoke, a large red armchair appeared behind him, and he sat. His long legs crossed automatically, and, with another small puff of black smoke, a glass of red wine appeared between the long fingers of his right hand. He spoke between his teeth, a knowing smirk always present just below his cool expression. "I apologize for my tardiness, but you, Death-sama, of all people know what a task it is to maintain a busy schedule." They called each other's names with mocking tones, as if to treat each other with respect was a laughable thing.  
  
Duo rolled his eyes. "I'm so honored you found the time." His voice dropped its mock-politeness. "Five years after I made the appointment." In a singsong voice, he quoted, " 'Hell is the most efficiently run section of Limbo' my ass! Do you even remember why you're upset anymore?" Taking a sip of wine, the man apologized for his rudeness and offered Duo a glass that had appeared just as suddenly as the first. Duo refused, claiming, "No, thanks, I've got my own." With that, the darkly clad boy reached into the water he was petting and pulled up a goblet the same shade of murky grey, filled with a thick black substance, like oil without the rainbow shine. He sipped it once licking his lips of the sweet taste, then put it on the cool stone next to him.  
  
"In response to your question, Child, I am not upset," the man smirked over his glass, eager for Duo's reaction. "Yet, at least."  
  
Not giving him the satisfaction of getting angry, Duo retorted. "Then why are you here, Old Man?"  
  
At that, the man waved his right hand vaguely, an open scroll appearing in the space between them both with another small puff of black smoke. Normally, they wouldn't abuse their powers as much as they were currently doing, but showing off has its own time and place, and here and now seemed like the perfect oppurtunity; it was the equivalent of flexing their muscles, and deities are known showoffs. Duo barely even glanced at the scroll, knowing what it said. "I'm here for my soul." Satan spoke elegantly, his voice calm despite the threatening undertone. "You will return what is rightfully mine by contract, or I shall be forced to take it by force." To emphasize his point, the man closed his fist violently, the scroll bursting into flames, black ashes floating softly to the dark grey grass below. Darkly, the man stated, "I am never connived out of a deal without proper retribution."  
  
Duo thought this over for a minute, then swung around where he sat, placing both feet firmly on the ground and leaning forward. "Speaking of contracts and deals, I believe we had one about this sort of thing."  
  
His ruby eyes narrowed, their glowing increasing minutely. "Clarify your meaning."  
  
"It's been a long time, so let me refresh your memory." A screen suddenly popped between them, like that of a projector, and crystal clear images began playing. As the mute people spoke, Duo narrated. "There's you, there's me, and there's God, a few billion years ago. That's the first contract we made that said we'd all be friends. There's God, editing it a bit so that he'd have headway to change the contract later. There's you, putting in all your catches and clauses and loopholes so you can start wars without God being able to stop you legally. And there's me, watching amused as the two of you bicker over something stupid. Now... wait for it... There! That's me, saying that if I need help, I get to take it from one of you guys. And that," He pointed, the screen pausing on the frame. "Is you signing the contract." The screen faded away until the deities were left glaring at one another. "Well, I needed help. With that war you had going on in Human, the body count was way up, and I'm talkin' major corpses out there. I needed another shade to deal with it; you should be glad I only took one. It just so happened that the one I wanted was Hell-bound." He grinned. "Nothing personal, of course."  
  
"Oh, of course." Satan muttered. The red-haired man seemed to think this over for a minute, swirling the wine in his glass as he did. His crimson eyes were cold and calculating, taking this all in and coming up with an equation to his liking. "Has my soul become one of your children yet?"  
  
Duo grinned, nodding. "Oh yes. He has at that. Great kid, too, love him to death. Kind of soul anyone'd die to have." His smirk widened, his eyes glowing purple with pure amusement.  
  
The man tried to resist a snarl. He stood up, the chair vanishing behind him with another large puff of smoke. "Fine. He may stay, if you insist upon such a trivial matter. As I have always stated, I want no altercation with you, Death. Besides, what is one soul among millions?"  
  
Standing up out of politeness, Duo's grin brightened, the look of victory clear on his face. "Now you're seeing it my way."  
  
Satan had suddenly closed the distance between them and was glaring down at Duo, one fist clasped tightly around the cloak at Duo's neck. The man hissed, his breath tainted with the smell of wine and matches. "Just stay out of my way, Child." He spat the word venomously, but Duo didn't so much as flinch. "I do not need you interfering with my business. It is God with whom my quarrel is, but, mark this, should you get in Hell's way again, we will not hesitate to destroy you, no matter the cost."  
  
Duo outright laughed at that, meeting the man's steady glare with his own glowing violet eyes. "Oh, I would LOVE to watch you try, Treize-sama." With that, the red haired man threw him back violently, Duo crashing into the fountain with a cracking of stone, the sparkling grey water creating a huge splash as he landed.  
  
Treize stood up straight, glaring down at the sopping wet boy. "Do not try me, Death. I am in no mood!" He turned and called over his red-cloaked shoulder, "Watch your step from now on, or I shall show you my true power, and let us watch as your shades come to collect YOU then!" With another grand puff of smoke, the man was gone. Duo stood up quickly, glaring as the last remnants of smoke vanished. He looked down and noticed that the glass of wine was nestled between the gray blades of grass, unbroken. Staring at it, Duo forced the glass upright until it was floating before him, only a small amount of wine left sloshing around within. His eyes began burning violet energy, sparks snaking down his cheeks. His hair lifted with the force, the messy braid snaking upward behind him as his bangs fluttered before his eyes. Even his black cloak lifted until it was billowing behind him. Then, with an animalistic quality, Duo screamed from deep in his chest, violet waves of light pouring off him, the water from the fountain shooting upwards in a wave around him, and the tiny glass of red wine bursting into shards the size of dust.  
  
Then, it stopped, the water, glass, braid, and cloak falling downward. The glow was gone, and Duo was left standing in the water, silent, dripping wet, and expressionless. Two boys ran into the room, voices worried as they fawned over Duo with their separate concerns. Duo smirked. "Death-sama?" One asked hesitantly. Then Duo outright grinned, and the two backed up slightly. Suddenly, Duo was laughing hard, violet tears leaking down his cheeks and being immediately absorbed back into his skin. The children merely watched, unable to speak. Finally Duo's laughter subsided, and he looked up, smiling.   
  
"He said he wasn't in the mood." Duo chuckled again bitterly, then stepped out of the fountain, walking away with wet footprints. On his way out, he was muttering to himself, "He threatened me!" and a few lighthearted obscenities. His shades watched with bewildered expressions as their father wandered back to his room, still laughing at the idea. They turned, regarding one another with mutual expressions, their thoughts mirrored: "Gods are temperamental, unpredictable, and powerful: steer clear when there's conflict between them."  
  
***  
  
They were still walking, always walking, never-ending. If felt like they'd been walking for hours, and maybe they had been. Heero hadn't heard the ghosts' voices for a half hour, at least, maybe longer. It was probably safe to assume they were all far behind him. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief, not really feeling it. That one voice was there, always there, haunting him more than a ghost could. It was a child's voice, a young girl's, and it smirked at him with its sly tone. He hated that voice, loathed it. While he hated admitting it, and hated himself for being so weak, he was truly terrified of that voice. And, logically, he had good reason to be. Noticing a pause in Duo's one-sided conversation, Heero dared to ask another question. "Duo?"  
  
The boy in black turned his head, his expression calm, inviting, and curious. "Yes?"  
  
He thought a minute of how to phrase it, then simply let the words come. "Why do you believe I'm not going to Hell?" It came out barely as a whisper, but Duo caught the words easily. Still, he took his time before answering. Finally, he shrugged.  
  
"Because you're not."  
  
Heero frowned. That wasn't very reassuring. He didn't want to push it, but was genuinely interested. He had to know why Duo believed in him so much, had so much faith. There had to be a reason; so what was it? "But why don't you think so?"  
  
"I don't THINK so; I know so." Again, another ambiguous answer.  
  
Heero stopped, grabbing Duo's upper arm and staring into those deep purple eyes, his own eyes determined to get an answer. "Why."  
  
They stood there as the group slowly caught up behind them, before Duo allowed a small smile to creep onto his lips. "Because I won't let you." He laughed softly before turning and walking away again.  
  
Heero remained standing still for a few minutes afterward, staring into space as new thoughts, new questions, new possibilities ran through his mind. Finally noticing that he was no longer walking, he turned and began jogging through the crowd of souls, pushing lightly as he made his way back to the front. He came alongside Duo, but just as he opened his mouth to ask, Duo interrupted. "Look out there. Do you see it?"  
  
Reluctantly dragging his eyes away from Duo's profile, Heero turned and glared at the horizon. He stared for a full minute before finally noticing a small flicker of light, like the sun's rays reflecting off metal. Still walking, Heero asked, "Yes. What is it?"  
  
Duo grinned, picking up speed. "We're almost there."   
  
Within a few minutes, the tiny glint of light had become a shining star, and the souls could see what exactly it was reflecting off of. Within ten minutes, they were there, standing next to it, their eyes wide with disbelief. Every soul present was in awe of the sight. Twin gates made of the finest, brightest, white-gold glittered in a bath of sunlight not present anywhere else in Limbo. Contrary to popular belief, they weren't pearl: though they were alarmingly white. In front of them, a woman in silky white robes with twin ivory wings twice her height sat behind a high golden podium. She had soft blond hair cut short, and wisps of blonde bangs fell over her eyes. A pair of thin, gold-rimmed reading glasses were perched on her nose and, behind them, pure blue eyes that shimmered in and of themselves looked out, welcoming the newcomers. She smiled warmly at the group of souls that had just arrived, the smile seeming to warm the air around them. When she spoke, the words sounded like music, and the meaning they conveyed sounded like a chorus of trumpets. "Welcome to the Gates of Eternal Paradise." 


	4. Flying

Chapter 4: Flying  
  
"I still say the gates aren't much to look at. I mean, look at them! They're just... gates! Literal gates! Swinging hinges and everything! How uninventive. I mean, all the other major gates are optical illusions of some sort, and Purg at least LOOKS cool. Then here's Heaven, the so-called 'best' corner of Limbo, and it's got such a pitiful entranceway! There's something really ironic in that." Noticing that no one seemed to be listening to him, Duo simply shrugged. "Hey, Heero, what do you think? I'm right, aren't I? Aren't they bor-- Heero?" He glanced over to notice that Heero was simply staring at the gates, mouth partially open, eyes narrowed. Duo sighed. Really, he hated Heaven. Heaven was just like a teasing thing: something to make everyone else jealous. Heaven was like... God showing off. No, better yet, Heaven was like a carrot, tied to stick, that's held in front of a horse to make the hungry animal run. Divine torture. Hephess was SO much nicer. Sure, it didn't look as pretty, and it didn't feel as nice, but at least it was real; Hephess was a haven more so than Heaven ever could be.  
  
Quatre, however, had a completely different opinion. The angel stood in a trance at the sight, leaning forward slightly. Only the small beating of his wings kept him from falling on his face ungracefully. He smiled with joy in its purest form, his eyes lighting up with it, becoming the color of the blue water in a forest stream. "Home." Quatre whispered the word, savoring the feel of it on his tongue. He laughed brightly, anticipation of being reunited with his fellows obvious. Duo smiled, shaking his head at angel's affection. That was the one good thing about Heaven: it made some people very happy. Hephess just couldn't do that. "Well, Quatre," Duo whispered, "Welcome home."  
  
"Quatre!"   
  
The young angel looked to where the rich voice had just come and locked eyes and smiles with his elder angel made holy gatekeeper. His smile widened and he beat his wings harder, propelling himself through the air and landing in a great hug with the woman. "Saint Lucrezia, it's so good to be home! I missed you so! I missed Heaven so! I missed everyone so, so much!"  
  
The saint laughed like the chimes of bells. "You've only been away for a few hours, Quatre."  
  
"I know," His smile still bright, Quatre replied, "but what a long few hours it's been!"  
  
The saint smiled down at the boy in her arms, then pushed him back lightly to eye the new crowd critically. "Ah, yes..." She trailed off, finally locking eyes with Duo. The two exchanged glances before Duo approached. She bowed deeply, her wings arching back in a magnificent display. "Death-sama, it is an honor, as always."  
  
"It's mutual, Ms. Noin, I assure you." Duo grinned, then nodded toward the group behind him. "Let's get 'em in and out fast; we're running a little late, and I've got to get home before my kids start worrying about me." He winked and the woman smiled in return.  
  
"Of course, Death-sama." She smiled proudly, "If this group's members are all as humble and righteous as the last group your messenger brought, I am sure you shall be on your way in no time, and with a very light load, at that!"  
  
Duo raised an eyebrow, his smile drooping slightly. "The last group? Why, was something wrong with them?"  
  
The saint laughed, "Oh, praise Our Glorious Father in Heaven, no! Why, all but one of the entire group was permitted into Paradise! I nearly cramped my hand writing in all those names." Laughing again, "It was absolutely a glory to do! So many righteous souls..." she trailed off with a smile.  
  
Unlike with the souls, the musical laughter of the sainted angel didn't seem to affect Duo, who remained frowning. Thoughtfully, he asked, "Really? ...Huh. That's quite a coincidence."  
  
A new, deeper voice responded, "Really. I'll vouch for it." His attention turned towards a shadowed figure who was leaning back against one of the gates, his head bowed, long bangs tossing black shades across nearly three-quarters of his face. The boy's arms were crossed casually, and it seemed as if he had not even spoken. With a cloak that was nearly identical to Duo's, only shorter and without a hood, he looked out of place leaning against the vibrant ethereal wall behind him. And yet, he seemed to blend in with the shadows of it: so much so, that no one had even noticed him standing there until he had made himself known.  
  
Duo grinned brightly and called out, "Hey, Trowa! What're you still doing here?" as he approached the figure. Trowa stood up from his casual stance and bowed to Duo out of respect.  
  
Quatre found himself staring at the shadowy figure, but tore his eyes away quickly and stared at the ground instead. He looked back up when a tiny voice called his name. He smiled at the girl. "Yes, Silvia?"  
  
The girl pointed in the direction where Duo and Trowa were speaking quietly to each other. "What's that?"  
  
He smiled at the girl. "That's a shade." Then, he thought of how to describe the dark figure to the girl in terms she'd understand. "He's one of Death-sama's helpers. Like an angel of Death."  
  
The girl's brow furrowed in confusion. "Angel? Where are his wings?"  
  
Looking wistful, Quatre replied, "He's a different kind of angel."  
  
***  
  
"So you still haven't told me what you're doing here, Trowa. And what was Noin talking about anyway? What was with the last group?"  
  
Trowa smiled thinly in appreciation of Duo. It was impressive that a deity with such power could act so lighthearted. Sometimes it worried him, but then he quelled the thoughts. Duo could take care of himself. "My group only had one damned soul. The rest entered Heaven. I offered to take him," he nodded towards a lone soul sitting outside the gate and looking longingly through the bars into Heaven, "to Purgatory. Apparently, he's Roman Catholic and connected Purgatory to punishment. He refused to go. I told him that it was not necessary to frightened, and that Purgatory was beneficial, but the soul would not believe. He claimed not to trust me." The shade smirked. "Though why he would trust you, Duo-sama more than I, I cannot know."  
  
Duo laughed, then asked. "So you just stuck around here to wait for my group, huh?" Trowa nodded, and Duo nodded in approval. "Good. We don't need any more souls getting lost then we already have. I think the ghosts are getting more brash than they used to be. Power in numbers and all that. We'll have to look into it later." Trowa nodded, then glanced over Duo's shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Catching the expression, Duo turned, coming face-to-face with Heero.  
  
"Duo, what's going on?"  
  
"Heero," He said grandly, "This is Trowa, my child, my shade, my coworker, my friend. Trowa, this is Heero." He gestured from one to another and Trowa extended his hand.  
  
"Pleasure to meet you, Heero." Heero accepted the handshake hesitantly, glaring at the pale gaunt hand of the shade. After they let go, Trowa regarded Heero carefully before commenting. "You remind me of someone."  
  
Heero narrowed his eyes, still untrusting of the dark character. "Who?"  
  
Trowa smirked, though the expression barely moved his face. "Myself." He turned to Duo. "Are you anxious to return to Hephess? I'll take the souls the rest of the way, if you'd like."  
  
Duo shook his head, but smiled in appreciation. "Nah, kind of getting attached to this group. Besides, I have something real important to discuss with Une."  
  
"Important? Should I be aware of this?" Trowa asked outright, but Duo shook his head.  
  
"Later. I'll let you all know when I get home, okay?"  
  
Just then, Duo felt a tug at the back of his cloak. He turned, and upon looking down, he noticed a wide pair of blue eyes. "Um, Mr.-- Mr. Death, sir..."  
  
He smiled down, "Yeah?"  
  
The girl backed up a bit, pushing Heero lightly between herself and Duo. "I, um, I wanted to know if my kitty would be in Heaven, 'cause I don't want to go without her..."  
  
Duo laughed lightly, sitting down on the ground so that he was lower than the girl and, thus, less threatening. "Why didn't you ask Quatre, Silvia?"  
  
Silvia looked down at her feet. "He's talking with that tall lady angel, and if I asked her, she might make me go in before I know."  
  
"Ah." Duo said nodding, "Smart." The little girl blushed lightly at the compliment. "What's your kitty's name?"  
  
"Snowy."  
  
Duo smiled. "I'm sure Snowy's in Heaven. You know, I think I remember a kitty... what did it look like?"  
  
"Well," the little girl started, "She was white and fluffy and she had yellow eyes."  
  
"Oh, I remember her." Trowa interrupted, nodding.  
  
Heero watched them all with a stupefied look. They weren't having a conversation on whether a dead cat was in Heaven or not. Someone tell him that they were not having that conversation! God, he hated children. Everyone turned into morons around them.  
  
Silvia's eyes widened with hope. "Really?" The shade nodded again. Silvia smiled brightly.  
  
Duo stood up, "Oh, by the way, Silvia, this is Trowa."  
  
The shade kneeled and extended his hand to the little girl. She held back for a minute, then reluctantly gave him her hand. She whispered softly, "Hi."  
  
Trowa smiled softly and took the little girl's hand. He brought it to his lips and kissed the back of it lightly, then whispered back, "It's nice to meet you, Silvia." The child giggled at the show of affection, then stepped back, looking around. "I should... probably go... Thank you!" With that, she ran off. As Trowa was about to stand up, he saw a pair of pale bare feet in front of him, the edges of muddied white robes covering them. He looked up slowly and his eyes beheld the radiance of a young angel smiling down at him, long silky white robes, pale neck, pink lips, sky-blue eyes and a golden halo of hair.  
  
"I'm Quatre." A voice like bells.  
  
Eyes unblinking, he whispered. "Trowa."  
  
The angel's smile only grew as he repeated the name to himself silently.  
  
After a moment of resonating silence, Duo interrupted, "Maybe you should check on Silvia, Quatre."  
  
Quatre stepped back blushing as Trowa stood, robes unfolding to their full length. "Yes, I probably should." He laughed nervously, then turned and began walking back toward the little girl. "Good-bye, Trowa."  
  
Trowa watched the angel's back as it walked away, noting every pristine white feather. "Bye."  
  
Heero glared at Trowa for a minute then asked, "You did not really take a cat to Heaven, did you?"  
  
Duo grinned. "Nah, cats are too small, hard to keep track of. Most non-venomous animals go straight to Heaven. We don't have to lead them because of natural instincts and all that. Unlike human souls, animals almost never get lost. Pets, though, don't have very good instincts, so we usually help the larger dogs and tamed horses." He nodded toward the greyhound that was meandering its way toward the gate. Heero shook his head. Pets in Heaven. It just sounded so pathetic. Duo just nudged his shoulder. "If you had a pet, maybe you'd understand." Duo grinned, turning back to Trowa. "So you waiting around for us or heading out now?  
  
"I'll follow your group, I think. Limbo is always rather boring without you around Duo-sama, and I don't have another shift for a while yet."  
  
Duo smiled brightly. "Perfect!"  
  
***  
  
As all this had been transpiring, the newly arrived souls were telling Saint Lucrezia their names and birthdays. The saint would find the name in a large book on her pulpit and tell the soul whether he was permitted into Heaven or not. If he was, then the gates would swing partially open, and the soul would be welcomed into a shimmering gold light, the gate closing behind. If not, then the soul was cast back into the group to wait for an escort to Hell. Almost all of the souls were allowed entrance, only about six or seven remaining. When Silvia had been accepted, she had dragged Quatre in with her, and hugged him when they were both inside. She had then ran off happily to find her cat. Quate had laughed, then walked back out to stand by Lucrezia as she finished the last few souls. Slowly, the line became shorter and shorter, until only Heero was left.  
  
Unwillingly, he approached the pulpit, head bowed. Why was he even bothering? Heero knew he was going to Hell, despite what Duo had said. Sighing, he rattled off the information the saint asked of him. "Heero Yuy, AC 180."  
  
Lucrezia scanned the long lists of names for that day and found it, pointing at the name with a delicate first finger. She then pronounced, "While most of your, what we refer to as, 'secondary sins' might have easily been forgiven by His Holiness Our Lord, you have broken two commandments and committed two deadly sins. Thus, you must be sent to Purgatory for cleansing."  
  
Hearing that, Duo walked fluidly and peered over Saint Lucrezia's shoulder. "Do you think he has a chance?"  
  
"I honestly don't know," She spoke adjusting his glasses, "From what I can see, he actually could be able to make it through." Lucrezia eyed Heero as if looking through him. "There is a righteous soul beneath all that blood somewhere." Heero looked away, glaring at nothing. The saint turned her head to glance at the deity leaning over her and whispered. "But you know as well as I, Death-sama, that repenting is up to the individual." Then she spoke in a normal tone. "Heero Yuy is henceforth banished to Hell unless he first passes through Purgatory and returns with the proper certification. Until then, he is denied access from Heaven. This is the word of Our Father."  
  
Heero stood there, his face a mask of apathy as that now familiar voice in his mind laughed at him, pointing and shouting "I told you so"s. He turned his back on the saint and Heaven, staring off into the whiteness of Limbo. "Let's go then."  
  
Duo stood for only a second longer before shrugging and announcing, "You heard the man. Let's get going." He grabbed the reins of his horse and began tugging it away. Heero and Trowa followed shortly behind, then slowly, the rest of the bedraggled souls who had nowhere else to turn tailed along as well. A few seconds later, Quatre began following them out.  
  
Lucrezia called out, "Quatre! You just got home! Where are you going?!"  
  
The angel paused mid-flight, and turned with an apologizing smile. "I've never seen Hell's gates, Saint Lucrezia. I-- I think this may be a learning experience for me."  
  
The gatekeeper regarded him with a bewildered expression. "Why would you want to?! There are some things better left unlearned, Quatre!"  
  
Biting his lip and casting nervous glances over one shoulder, Quatre nodded. "I-- I know, but..." Finally, he just begged her with wide blue eyes and a sparkling smile. "Please?"  
  
Sighing, Lucrezia nodded. "Lord in Heaven knows I cannot keep you here. I may keep the gate, but not you, you stubborn child!"  
  
Quatre grinned. "Thank you, Saint Lucrezia! You have no idea what this means to me!"  
  
"Be careful!" Her eyes begged him. "Please, Quatre. I don't know what I would do if harm came to you, brother. The guilt would be on my head for--"  
  
"I know!" He smiled reassuringly. "I know. And I will be careful, I promise. Thank you!" Quatre dove off in the direction the group had taken, flying faster away from home than he ever had before. He hadn't lied; of course he hadn't! Angels don't lie. They physically can't. It was true: he had never seen Hell's gates. It was also true that this trip would most definitely be a learning experience. Of course, the blonde angel had an ulterior motive as well, but the saint didn't need to be burdened with that; she had enough on her holy mind.  
  
***  
  
Heero was unconsciously walking in step to the music playing in his head. The words were dark, their meaning darker, but the music was light. There were no instruments, was no definite tune. There was only the voice. A lone, solitary voice, a child's voice, a small girl's voice, singing to him in broken notes, pausing as if the words were difficult for her small mind to recall. As she sang, Heero heard nothing else but that hollow haunting melody, the high pitched whispers of a child in an empty playground, surrounded by blood yet untouched by it. There was picture of the child in his head, now: that girl with fiery hair cropped short, the sparkling threads of them dancing across her equally red eyes. Her lips were much too dark to be naturally colored, perhaps tainted by maroon lipstick, and a pale pink tongue and glistening white teeth ran over them as she sang prolonged "l"s and "f"s. Every so often, the girl would pause in her song to giggle and wave in Heero's direction before once more prancing around in a circle, whispering then shouting the silky words of the dead language.  
  
"In die illa tremenda," She laughed, "quando coeli movendi sunt et terra," Her voice built and she shouted to the grey sky hovering over her small form, "dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!" She turned to Heero, her eyes dancing with joy, knowledge, and flames. "Tremens factus sum ego et timeo!" She smiled, shaking her scarlet hair, "Discussio venerit atque venture ira: coeli movendi sunt et terra." Heero sat on the charred grass nearby, watching the small girl dance around the battlefield as she cavorted, laughing and singing. He couldn't smile. There was nothing to smile about. The girl was teasing him, though she acted so flippantly. She wasn't normally like this, this... immature, this... childish. She was acting this way for a reason, he knew it. He just couldn't figure out what that reason was. He was drawn into the song, unable to catch a defined chorus, yet unable to get the tune out of his head. It would drive him mad if this kept up. But on the outside, he simply walked.  
  
***  
  
Duo was very worried now. Heero had "zoned out" (as Duo had come to refer to Heero's extended lapses of attention) his share of times along the trip, but nothing like this. Now he was walking only because his feet didn't stop moving; if there had been a brick wall in their path, Duo was sure that Heero would've walked right through it without realizing. The soul's eyes were completely vacant as if he were somewhere else entirely. But that's not what had Duo worried. What had Duo worried was the humming. Heero, the guy who barely spoke, wouldn't smile, and never laughed, was humming; what's more, he was humming a very upbeat childish tune (something similar to Ring-Around-The-Rosy). He'd been walking like that ever since they left Heaven, and no matter what Duo said, Heero continued being oblivious to everything but that song only he heard. Duo had seen these symptoms before, to a lesser extent, and was even more concerned because of it. Death was not happy with the way this was going.  
  
***  
  
Quatre, on the other hand, was quite content with his current situation. Without having Silvia following him, the angel had found someone else to talk to: someone a little older, a little darker, and a little more... aesthetically pleasing. Trowa didn't seem to mind the company, either. "So, if you don't mind my asking, how did you become a shade anyway? I'm not quite positive about how one goes about it."  
  
Trowa smirked. "Why? Are you considering converting?"  
  
The angel laughed, "No, I'm perfectly happy with my status, thank you. Oh, no offense to Death-sama, of course." Trowa nodded in understanding. "I'm just... curious.... about you."  
  
"It's not all that interesting."  
  
Quatre smiled. "I don't mind."  
  
***  
  
"Dies irae, dies illa!" Her eyes were glowing with red fire now as she danced around Heero, singing to him. "Calamitatis et miseriae!" She giggled with her childish voice, smiling brightly as she kneeled down and washed her hands in a puddle of hot blood.  
"Dies magna et amara valde!" Her eyes locked with Heero's as she finger-painted the blood onto his face. "Veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!" The last notes held, the child's stare at Heero with her glowing scarlet eyes unbroken as one bloody finger slid down his cheek. Then, her childlike smile fell, and the battlefield around them tumbled down like pieces of glass, leaving only darkness, Heero, the child, and the blood between them. Her eyes even with his, she spoke in a deep voice that was completely different from the one she had just been singing in. "Nil inultum remanebit per ignem." Heero tried to move, tried to speak, tried to wake up, but found he couldn't. He was riveted to the spot, unable to defend himself from the demon child. As if to answer him, the girl smiled again brightly, her eyes containing the innocence of a child's once more. She looked around at the blackness they were in, then giggled at the emptiness she saw. "Diebus fatalibus. The day has died." The girl turned back to Heero, still smiling, "Only we remain. The fire never burns out entirely; it simply takes another form." She giggled again, "You'll see," then tapped Heero on the nose with one bloody finger. He blinked out of reflex, and as he did, the world flashed like a burst of fireworks.   
  
He woke up to a blinding white light. He was walking, still walking, always walking, through the cardboard white of Limbo. Something inside him laughed. Something inside him cried. All of him shouted his hatred for children.  
  
The shout came out as more of a growl. Duo glanced over at the noise and muttered, "Morning to you too, Sunshine."  
  
Heero turned sharply, his eyes finally back in focus. "What--" He looked around. "What... was...?"  
  
"A vision." Duo answered simply. "Or a warning. Or a threat, maybe. Or maybe it was just someone playing with you. We've all got real twisted senses of humor around here, you know? Then again, maybe it was just a nightmare, a hallucination brought on by stress." He muttered noncommittally, "Could be anything, really." He absently stroked the silky black hairs of his horse's neck as their group continued walking.  
  
Suddenly, Heero was paranoid again. With a sharp tone, he accused, "Did you do it? Why would yo--"   
  
Interrupting, Duo laughed. "It wasn't me. Trust me, Heero. When I send you a vision, you'll know it's me sending it."  
  
Why did Heero not like that answer? Why did it unnerve him? And yet, at the same time, why did it-- "Duo?" An alternate question suddenly found its way to his mouth without his even realizing it: a question that seemed far more important now than ever. Duo looked over in acknowledgment. Navy blue eyes expressionless, Heero asked with a dead tone, "What did you mean when you said you wouldn't let me go to Hell?"  
  
Laughing, thought it was obviously forced, Duo asked. "What's to explain?"  
  
Heero glared at the blank path before him. Of course, it didn't look any different from the white expanse he had been walking through for the past few hours, but he had a pretty idea where he was being led, like a sheep to the slaughter. He muttered, "It certainly looks like we're headed there."  
  
"We are."  
  
Heero turned at the simple statement, watching Duo's profile closely. "But, you sai--"  
  
"Trust me, Heero." Duo continued watching the path before him steadily, his shining violet eyes intense but his face otherwise expressionless. "I know exactly what I'm doing." After another minute of silent walking, Duo smiled fondly. As if lost in memory, he commented lightly, "You know, you remind me of someone."  
  
Curious, Heero asked, "Who?"  
  
Duo shook his head. "Never mind. You don't know him." He smirked mentally, his thoughts adding, "But you will."  
  
***  
  
//AD 1940//  
  
"Death-sama...." A woman sat behind a small wooden desk, papers messily strewn across it. Her hair was a light brown, almost red, twisted into twin buns just above her neck. Her eyes matched her hair: deep brown at first glance, but with flecks of brilliant yellow and red mixed in. She was holding a handful of papers, each full of hard black words of what looked like Latin, written across every white page; there weren't even margins, just endless lines of thick dark ink. The brunette glared at the boy dressed in black who was sitting on her desk as if he owned it.  
  
Duo grinned at her innocently. "Yes, Ms. Gatekeeper, Ma'am? Something wrong?"  
  
Her expression still hard, her lip curled slightly, the gatekeeper spoke through clenched teeth, "You're missing one."  
  
Feigning shock, Duo jumped from his perch on the desk, "Missing one?! Oh no! I've lost a soul! Dear me, how DID that happen?!" He scoffed, falling back to his place on the desk, ignoring the sheets of paper he gracelessly sat on. "I'm sorry, did you have a point, Ms. Une? You know souls get lost all the time."  
  
Une ripped a paper out from under him, holding it up to the deity's smiling face. "This says that the soul not only made it to and was rejected from Heaven, but that he also made it to Purgatory. We have records about these things, Death-sama, kindly don't lie about them." She slammed the paper down, her head held up triumphantly.  
  
"Why does my name sound like a curse when you say it, Une?" He smirked.  
  
"Because it is." She retorted sharply. "And don't try to change the subject, Death-sama."  
  
Duo shrugged. "Okay, yes, the kid made it to Purgatory; did I say he didn't? I lost him some time after. Guess it was too much for him. He's probably on his way back to Human now to join a band of ghosts or something." His expression became a bit darker. "I told you I lost him; so I lost him." He leaned closer, his face becoming grim, eyes becoming a bit brighter. "You're not questioning me, are you, Demon?"  
  
Une leaned back in her wooden chair, a small smirk creeping onto her dark lips. "Of course not, Death-sama." Duo was about to affirm a "damn straight," when Une held up another paper that he hadn't even seen the demon pick up. "But this paper is. It says here that a Mr. Wufei Chang was escorted to Hephess by one of your shades not even two hours ago, and that he is due to take permanent residency there, by your order."  
  
Duo shrunk down a bit where he sat. "And you already have papers proving that?"  
  
Smirking openly now, Une replied. "Hell is the most efficiently run section of Limbo, Death-sama; Second to none, I am proud to say."  
  
He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah," standing up from his perch. "Well, I'd love to stay, but I've got things to do, people to see, shades to appoint; you know how it is. It's always nice chatting with you, Une, but I'll see you later, all right? Okay!" He grabbed his horse's reins and began walking away when Une called out.  
  
"His Unholiness Treize-sama wants that soul back in Hell where it belongs NOW, Death-sama!"  
  
Duo stopped in his tracks, rigid at the tone. He turned around sharply. "Understand me, Gatekeeper." He spoke in all seriousness. "Wufei isn't coming to Hell." His voice kept Une wisely silent. "With the war going on, there's more people dying than normal, so I want to break the shifts down a bit. My children have too much strain on them, and I will not allow them to get worn out because 'Treize-sama' is a tight-ass." Une balked at the expression, but remained mute as Duo continued sharply, "I need another shade. It's not open for discussion. And Wufei's it. Why? Because he's the perfect candidate for reasons I don't expect your tiny demonic mind to comprehend. And if Satan doesn't like it, he can pay a visit to Hephess, and we can have a little business discussion, all right? Great. Schedule it in some time. I have things to do." With that, he mounted his horse and began galloping off in the direction of Hephess.  
  
Une scoffed, growled out a string of obscenities, then scrawled something quickly on a piece of paper. She stood up from her desk and turned. Facing the gate behind her, she sighed, mentally preparing for the wrath she might face. Then, she stepped through the gate to find Treize-sama. She hated to see him upset, and she hated Death-sama for upsetting him so often. Treize-sama seemed to be more and more on edge lately...  
  
***  
  
"Finally! Now THIS is a gate! Look at that craftsmanship! Definitely worthy of a portal. Not as nice as Hell's, Hephess', or even Limbo's, but a lot better than Heaven's, don't you think?"  
  
From his place a few feet behind Duo, Quatre replied meekly, "I prefer Heaven, myself."  
  
So, this was Purgatory's gate; they had finally made it. Twin pillars of white marble stood proudly, towering above the souls' heads. There were screaming faces carved into one silky column, the minute details presenting agony in the stones' expressions. In the opposite pillar were faces full of relief, some crying, some laughing. The faces were literally raised from the stones, jutting out; their pupil-less white eyes stared straight through the souls, searching them. Heero tried to avoid the gazes, stepping marginally to one side or the other, but the eyes seem to follow him, mocking him, begging him. This wasn't good. Something about this unnerved Heero deeply. Whatever was inside was not something to look forward to. He was in no rush to go through those pillars.  
  
Stretched between the twin pillars was a mirror. Duo had carefully stepped to the side to avoid being reflected, and the souls themselves had no reflections to speak of; thus the only things jading the clear silver were a small star-like burst of light and a hovering grey shadow: seemingly the reflections of the angel and shade. Idly, Heero wondered if Duo had a reflection and, if so, what was it? He sighed. Another question to go unanswered.  
  
After only a few seconds upon arriving at the gate, a figure suddenly stepped through the mirror. He was a tall, thin man with great rose-colored wings arching off his back. Unlike Quatre's wings, however, his appeared to be a different type; they were made entirely of short feathers, the long pinions missing. Apparently, his wings were not meant for flying. The man wore long white robes with red trim, and his hair was a silvery white color and very thin: like spider's silk. His face was pale and gaunt, and his eyes were sunken in and beady with bright pink irises. There were heavy creases in his high forehead, but not a single line near his mouth: it looked as if had done a lot of frowning and had yet to smile. This was probably the case. The man spoke, "I am judge. You will receive instructions inside. Follow." And with that, he turned and reentered the mirror, the metallic surface gleaming white as he did so.  
  
No one moved to follow. Duo laughed to lighten the mood. "Don't mind the judges. They're intimidating, but they're harmless." His mind tacked on, "Basically."   
  
After a bit more prodding from Duo, and a few reassurances from Quatre, the few souls began plodding through, glancing around uneasily. No one knew what to expect, and from the looks of the judge, they weren't going to like what they found. Heero turned to stare at Duo with questioning eyes. The boy in black simply shrugged an apology. Heero turned and glared once more at the arch, looking anywhere but the images' eyes. He looked up; stretching the length of one pillar to the other was a large polished block of equally white marble. Within the stone were calligraphic letters, looking as archaic as the gate itself. Heero read the words to himself, "Nil inultum remanebit." He frowned at the familiarity of the phrase, glancing over at Duo. "That's Latin?"  
  
Duo looked up from his thoughts, "Hm?" He looked to the arch where Heero pointed. "Oh, yeah. Old gate, old language. Plus it's a universal thing. Wouldn't be very fair to put it just in English or Spanish, would it? And listing ALL of the known languages would've taken forever! Plus then they would've needed a bigger gate." He grinned.  
  
Not sharing the humor, Heero continued glaring at the phrase, his eyes drawn to it. "What does it say?"  
  
Laughing, Duo teased, "What, you don't speak Latin?"  
  
"No, I do." Heero shook his head. "I mean, I did. I learned it, but that was years ago and I've never really needed to use it. I only remember a few basics now." His mind added silently, "So please tell me I'm translating it wrong."  
  
Duo shrugged, then read the phrases. His voice lowered as he easily spoke the dead language, and he sounded more like the voice one would imagine a deity to have. The inflections of his voice, the way they rolled off his tongue, his smooth accent, and the meaning of the words themselves were all more than enough to send shivers down Heero's spine. "Nil inultum remanebit." He turned and stared at Heero's profile, taking in the soul's empty expression. "Nothing shall remain unpunished."  
  
Sighing mentally, Heero muttered, "I thought so."  
  
  
******  
  
  
A/N  
- Just note: if I were working in an html document rather than a .txt, the Latin would be in italics.  
-What the little girl was singing were Latin lyrics to "Libera me," which was written by Alessandro Manzoni (correct me if I'm wrong). The translation of what she sang is, "In that awful day when the heavens and earth shall be shaken, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire! I am seized with fear and trembling! The trial shall be at hand and the wrath to come: the heavens and earth shall be shaken. ... That day, that day of wrath! Of calamity and misery! A great day and exceedingly bitter! Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire!"  
-I don't speak Latin and have never taken courses in it. I'm using all of the resources I can to find these phrases, their translations, and then alter them to my needs, so if you see something wrong, please don't hesitate to e-mail me at Kacfrog711@cs.com. 


	5. Slipping

A/N:   
- "Kyrie eleison" means "Lord have mercy."  
  
  
Chapter 5: Slipping  
  
Most people believe that Hell is where souls are punished in ironic ways for their sins. This is not true. Torture isn't ironic at all in Hell, it's simply, for lack of a better word, evil. In Hell, souls are punished in whatever manner will hurt them the most, regardless of the degree of their sins. In fact, Hell is much like a democracy: everyone is treated equally, united as one under Satan. It is in Purgatory, however, where the true measurements of the different sins are taken. The difference between Hell and Purgatory is simple: mindless torture for all Eternity versus structured torture for a short time.  
  
Purgatory, a belief predominantly Roman Catholic, is a final chance to repent and, through suffering, make peace with God. Descriptions of the physical place are vague, at best, simply because the physical form is not the center of attention. No one cares where the punishment takes place, but rather, everyone is focused on two things: the punishment to endure and the reward to gain. The reward is always stated in the same terms no matter who states it. If one endures Purgatory, he receives the forgiveness of God and a second chance at Heaven. Who could pass up such an offer? And so, the souls willingly accept the punishment they receive. What punishment is this? No mere mortal can say for sure. There are tales of being broken on a wheel, of being consumed by rats and worms, of being boiled in oil, or any number of similar gruesome things. However, these are obviously punishments devised by humans and thus, are most likely not true. Souls are physically numb. Such torture would be nothing to them. Then what, one might ask, could possibly be used as torture on a soul incapable of feeling pain? The answer was something Heero was not looking forward to learning.  
  
Heero wasn't Roman Catholic. He wasn't even Catholic. A few hours ago, he wasn't even sure if there was a God. So how the hell did he end up standing outside the gate of something he didn't believe in?! It didn't make sense. He had heard of Purgatory, yes, and now here it stood. He knew what he was in for: the pain, the suffering he would be forced to endure, but he wasn't scared; however, he wasn't relieved either. In fact, he wasn't anything. He should feel SOMETHING about his own impending doom, shouldn't he? Why was he suddenly so... dead?  
  
Perhaps that question was its own answer.  
  
Heero stood, pensively contemplating these ideas as, one by one, his fellow condemned souls made their way through the glistening liquid gate. Before long, the line before him was gone, all of the souls were inside, and he was all that was left: he, the angel, the shade, and Death. Heero turned hesitantly toward the black-clad deity, frowning slightly, but otherwise managing to control his expression. "You're not coming." He knew the answer, thus the question became more of a melancholy statement. Of course Duo wasn't coming into Purgatory, why would he? Why did he even ask? Did he really even care? Heero couldn't even discern his own feels, his own motivations anymore. Everything was surreal. What mattered now that he was dead?  
  
Duo laughed dryly. "Going in? No, no, no. Not a chance." He scoffed, crossing his arms. "God says I'm not allowed in anymore. He thinks I'll screw with his little game, cheat somehow." Duo sighed extravagantly. " I swear! You help one, two, twenty-two thousand, or so souls redeem themselves, ya know, just gently nudging them in the right direction, and suddenly you're called a cheater! I was only talking them through it! It wasn't like I was using my power or anything!" He winked, nudging Heero, then grew somber as he realized Heero didn't share his cheer. Duo's smile faded to a ghost of the grin it once was. "It'll be okay. Despite popular belief, it's really not so bad. Just do what they tell you, say what they want you to say, don't have a mental breakdown, and you'll make it out the other side clean, with my help or without it."  
  
The portal flickered slightly, a wave of light fading from top to bottom. As the light passed downward, Heero got a glimpse of what he was about to walk into. Instinctively, he lifted his chin and backed away a few steps. He did NOT like what he saw. Glancing at Duo, Heero's eyes searched Duo for something, not even sure of what they was seeking.  
  
Smiling brightly, Duo shrugged as if it were nothing. "Sorry, can't help you get out of this one. You're on your own, pal."  
  
Yeah, on his own. Alone. Always alone. He deserved it, though. He deserved whatever he got. Strengthening his resolve, Heero mentally prepared himself for whatever it was he was walking into. It was nothing he couldn't handle, nothing he hadn't dealt with before. He exhaled once sharply, standing as tall as he could. "Now or never. Strong, Yuy. You're a soldier. You're Heero Yuy." The word, "failure" flitted over him, tagging along with his name, but Heero quickly dismissed it for his own sake. He glanced briefly over Duo, Quatre, and Trowa, before focusing his eyes on the glistening puddle of a gate. Slowly, Heero walked forward, unable to suppress a shiver as he passed under the age-old marble sign.  
  
"Good luck." Duo watched him go, muttering to himself even after he knew Heero could no longer hear him. "It's gonna be okay, Heero. Don't worry. You belong in Heaven. This is your chance to get back. Dirty souls go in, clean ones come out. You're strong. There's nothing to worry about." Duo only halfheartedly believed his own muttered reassurances. It was true, the occasional damned soul made it through Purgatory and ended up clean, but that soul was one for every hundred-thousand, occasionally not even then. Even Wufei hadn't made it out clean, and Duo was positive he would... But Heero could do it. Heero had... something, something Duo couldn't put his finger on, that made him stand out from the rest. Heero was special somehow; he had to be. Why else would Duo be so worried about him?  
  
"Duo-sama?"  
  
Duo turned to smile reassuringly at Trowa. "Hm?"  
  
The shade opened his mouth to voice his concerns that Duo was muttering to himself, but stopped. Instead, he glanced off into a specific direction of the white nothingness. "I'm going to start back to Hephess." He turned, meeting Duo's eyes, "Unless, of course, you need me...?"  
  
The deity thought this over for a minute, his eyes nervous looking. Finally he responded. "Go ahead, it's fine. I can deal with them myself, really. Small group. You get home and check on the other kids. Make sure everything's going okay. I worry, you know? Things are tense right now, and they're only going to get worse..." He looked back at the gate, staring hopelessly at it.  
  
Trowa took a step closer and whispered, "Are you sure you won't tell me?"  
  
Duo grinned disarmingly. "You know me, Trowa. I like to put everything off to the last minute. I said I'll tell you when I get home, and I'll tell you when I get home, got it?"  
  
Nodding, Trowa muttered, "Yes, Duo-sama." He glanced over at Quatre, then watched the white ground as he began walking off toward "home."  
  
Quatre watched him go only a few steps before flitting off after him, hovering by his side. "Trowa?" The shade glanced over, raising an eyebrow. "What--" Quatre looked down at his hands, cleaning his already-clean fingernails. "What is Hephess like?"  
  
Still walking, Trowa took a minute before answering. When he did speak, it was soft and reserved. "Colorless. Quiet. Much smaller than any other realm. It-- There is a... certain feel to it I cannot grasp. Words do not suit it." He turned his head to find the angel staring at him. "Like all domains, it is a place one must experience."  
  
Looking at his hands again, Quatre smiled softly. "I'd like to visit it, some day..." He glanced up, waiting for an answer to the unasked question.  
  
Expressionless, Trowa replied softly. "I'd like the company." Quatre smiled outright at that, but Trowa added, "You may want to ask Duo-sama, though. He's quite protective of it."  
  
***  
  
Duo was staring into the mirror of Purgatory's gate, contemplating himself. The gate's mirror is unique in that it amplifies one's reflection. While an angel may look simply like a flashlight's dull yellow beam in a normal reflective surface, in Purgatory's gate, an angel looks like the sun. In most mirrors, Duo's reflection was dark enough that he could stand looking at it. In Purgatory, however, it was much worse, magnified to its most gruesome, each minute detail hauntingly clear.  
  
The thing in the mirror did not reflect a fifteen year old boy with smiling violet eyes and rich chocolate hair. In fact, the reflection looked nothing like the boy before the mirror. At first glance, it appeared to be a dark stain, a smatter of tar carelessly tossed against the shining surface. Looking closer, however, one could see the image of a face mixed into the black, the face of something inhuman, inanimate. There were eyes like a cat's, slit, glowing violet, dripping with the glowing purple goo. Its nose was caved in at the bridge, resembling the tight indentation of the skull beneath it. The teeth, as the image smiled, were fanged, but dulled from time, pristine white and glistening like wet porcelain. The whole face was a deathly shade of pale white, almost indigo, including the long stands of hair pulled behind its head. All pale... save the lips. The thin lips were a deep shade of blue, and where there were thin cracks in them, the blue looked almost black. The rest of the figure was cloaked in black, save for the faint shimmer of a silver blade at the end of a long ebony pole.  
  
Duo stared at it in the way one is drawn to stare at a car accident: morbid fascination. No matter how many times he saw that distorted reflection, he never grew accustomed to it. He grinned sardonically, somehow making the mangled reflection seem twice as disfigured. "I am one gorgeous god."  
  
"Death-sama?" He turned, and the head of the monstrosity he reflected turned with him. Avoiding eye-contact with the mass in the mirror, Quatre continued, "I-- I was wondering if I might... if I could go see Hephess. With Trowa." Quickly, he bowed his head and began rambling subserviently. "If it's all right with you, of course, Death-sama, since I've never seen it before, and I'd like to know if what I've heard is really true. If it's not all right with you, Death-sama, then, of course, it's no problem, and I'll gladly sta--"  
  
"Quatre."  
  
The angel looked up, smiling innocently. "Yes?"  
  
Duo shrugged. "It's fine, go have fun. Just don't go wandering off anywhere without a shade guiding you. I don't need an angel walking aimlessly around Hephess 'cause he got lost, you know what I mean? I get enough of that with the souls."  
  
Smiling brightly, Quatre nodded. "Yes, Death-sama." He called over one shoulder, already walking off in the direction Trowa had taken. "Thank you!"  
  
"Oh! Quatre!" The angel paused mid-step, turning. "One more thing..." Duo walked up until he was within inches of the angel, their eyes locking. Still smiling, he leaned forward until their noses were almost touching, then spoke quietly, "If you do ANYthing to hurt ANY of my children, and I mean so much as hurt one hair on ANY of their heads, I promise you WILL be toast. And not the good toast, either. I mean the non-existing toast." He paused for emphasis, the threat of nonexistence hanging over them, then he asked, "You got me?" Eyes wide, Quatre nodded silently. Duo stepped back, slapping Quatre lightly on the back. "Great! Glad we're seeing eye-to-eye. Now you go have fun, all right?" Quatre nodded again dumbly, eyes still wide. He took a few steps backwards, then turned and jogged the rest of the way after Trowa.  
  
Duo turned, sighing, then spoke to his reflection. "I wasn't too hard on him, was I?" He laughed. "Why do you always think the worst of people?" He waited, as if listening, before replying, "Oh, shut up, they are not. Besides, Quatre's just a kid. I don't think he'll pull anything. Angels aren't like that." He paused, once again listening to his silent reflection before waving a hand absently. "Eh, what do you know, smart-ass? What? Who cares if you're older! I know just as much as you do. I AM you." After a minute of silence, he sighed. "Guess I better go wait on the other side for Heero and the rest to get out. Can't have them waiting for me, now, can we?" He nodded. "Glad you agree." He blew the reflection a kiss, then his feet began melting into a shining purple light. Soon the rest of his physical form followed from his feet up to his neck, ending with his grinning pink lips. His horse, standing faithfully to the side, also followed in dissolving into nothing more than violet light, and the two expanses melded together into one blob. The large puddle of purple mist then slithered its way through the thick air of Limbo at an amazingly fast speed, taking the long way around the area of Limbo dubbed "Purgatory."  
  
***  
  
As Heero stepped through the gate, he became immediately dizzy. As in Limbo, there appeared to be no ground and no sky, but here, the white nothingness had been replaced with mixing mists of red, white and pink. The various colors were all around, swirling together and circling those beings within. Heero was quickly ushered into the newly formed line of souls by another "judge." He stood there, glancing around at the hypnotizing swirls of color and the group of tall, gaunt, winged men behind the line he was in. The judges all looked nearly identical with only a few minor differences in their facial features. Only one stood out. The one man was dressed in an inverse robe from the others: red with a thin white trim. The judge came before the line of souls and glared at them, then spoke in a thin harsh tone. "You are here to receive divine retribution through exploitation of sins committed in life. The process is time-consuming, and thus we shall begin immediately so as not to keep Death-sama waiting. In order to be heard by Our Lord in Heaven, you must speak in Latin, for it is the heart of all languages, and its meaning is pure despite time's grasp. What you say from this point on will be heard by Our Heavenly Father, but only what is said in Latin will be acknowledged. Do. You. Understand, Sinners?"  
  
The majority of souls, including Heero, nodded silently, one verbalizing his affirmation in Latin, as told.  
  
"Good. I assume most of you do not speak Latin, which is a pity. Here is a quick lesson for the ignorant among you. Confiteor quia peccavi nimis. Non confundar in aeternum. Gere curam mei funis. Repeat. Confiteor quia peccavi nimis."  
  
Hesitantly, the souls repeated, their voices blending into one dead tone. "Confiteor quia peccavi nimis."  
  
"Non confundar in aeternum."  
  
They repeated obediently.  
  
"Gere curam mei funis."  
  
And again, their voices sounded in a monotonous unison.  
  
The judge muttered, "Close enough," then continued with his obviously well-practiced speech in an apathetic tone. "Their translation is akin to, 'I confess that I have sinned. Let me not be damned for eternity. Help me in my final hour.' You are to repeat these words when questioned. You are to mean them. If you do not mean the words, you are not speak them. Do you understand, Sinners?"  
  
They nodded once more in semi-unison.  
  
"Good. The decision of your fate is your own doing and will be made based on your responses. You will each be judged individually. You may not leave until given permission. Do not stray from your assigned judge; it is entirely possible to become lost in Purgatory, and I have been told this is not a pleasant experience." He looked over the souls' heads and nodded once sharply. His fellow judges then stepped forward, each placing one thin hand on the right shoulder of each soul. Heero swiveled his head at the touch, glaring at the offending hand suspiciously. The judge who had just been speaking nodded again, and the souls were escorted to different sections of Purgatory by a firm push from the hands on their shoulders.  
  
Heero stared at the door they were now facing, eyeing the silver doorknob as if it would bite him. He was alone with the judge now, and while this didn't unnerve him, it didn't make him leap with joy, either. The judge, hand still clasped tightly on Heero's shoulder, spoke sternly, "Open it." Hand steady, Heero reached out and grabbed the knob, feeling the cool metal beneath his touch, and pulled it.  
  
***  
  
Quatre and Trowa had been walking together for some time now on the relatively short trip to Hephess. They spoke in quiet tones, as if to raise their voices would disturb the still whiteness around them. Words were exchanged, and with them, lives came into a clearer view as they formed a bond that only the dead could: the camaraderie that comes with existing for so long, for seeing so much, for knowing so great. They shared the crucial belief that they had nothing to lose, and with that, they had nothing to hide.  
  
They discussed whatever came to their minds, from their current occupations, to their lives, to their deaths. In fact, they talked together so easily that the trip to Hephess seemed to fly by, and before long, they were approaching the gate.  
  
Quatre laughed, his eyes glowing with curious enjoyment. "She actually said that to you?"  
  
Trowa nodded, fighting back a smirk.  
  
Quatre shook his head, still smiling, "I could never have to nerve to say something like that to Death, nor one of his children, for that matter."  
  
"Yes, we can be intimidating, especially to the living."  
  
"I don't think you're intimidating."  
  
Trowa looked over at Quatre, gauging the angel's earnest expression. "I suppose you don't."  
  
"Death-sama, on the other hand..." Quatre looked away, remembering his previous conversation with the god. "I don't think intimidating is the word."  
  
Trowa shook his head. "He is not someone to be afraid of."  
  
Raising his eyebrows, Quatre quipped, "Are you kidding?"  
  
"You just have to get to know him." Trowa glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Purgatory. "He has his own problems to deal with. Something has been getting to him lately, and I believe I know what it is."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
He shook his head. "I would only be guessing. Besides, until Duo-sama tells me, it's not my business." Before Quatre could respond, Trowa nodded forward, gesturing to a looming expanse of darkness in the distance. "We're almost there."  
  
***  
  
When he had opened the door, a bright light had flashed, temporarily blinding him. After his eyes adjusted, Heero looked around. They were in a room now, the same dull pink and red swirls decorating the walls. The door was there, but reversed, a testimony that they had, indeed, gone through it. There was a small wooden chair sitting in the room, but otherwise, it was completely empty.  
  
"Heero Yuy," He looked up as the tall judge spoke to find a rolled up paper in one of the mans' bony hands. "The following is a list of each of your vices, from the least foul to the vilest. While individually, many are not nearly so costly as to set you on your current path, the combination has damned you. If you admit to them all, then, and only then, may you begin to be forgiven. Do you understand, Sinner?" Heero nodded, but inside he was growling. This "sinner" business was getting more than a little annoying. These judges were so aloof that, if he had been alive and still capable of feeling, it would have been infuriating. The judge pulled the long scroll downward, opening it. He read the list solemnly with spite, as if the words fouled his mouth by simply speaking them. "First, the secondary sins.  
  
"Using Our Lord's title as an obscenity." He waited for Heero's response.  
  
"Confiteor."  
  
"Loss of faith."  
  
"Confiteor."  
  
"Now, the deadly sins. Pride."  
  
Biting back any arguments, Heero nodded. "Confiteor."  
  
"Envy."  
  
"When did--" The argument died on his lips. Why bother fighting? He'd almost surely lose anyway. Sighing, Heero muttered, "Confiteor."  
  
"Finally, and most importantly, the commandments. Failure to remember the Holy Sabbath day."  
  
This time, Heero couldn't hold the argument back as the muttered reply fell from his lips, "Go to church. When? My whole life was spent behind a gun, locked in training rooms."  
  
"Do not lie, Sinner; you were not a child forever. Do not pass the guilt onto your elders or I shall add this to your list of secondary sins."  
  
The soul sighed softly. "Even so, many Sundays were spent on the battlefield. How could I honor them while fighting a war? Are you saying that I should've dropped my weapons and sat down in a church for a few hours while my enemy was shooting at me? Ridiculous."  
  
"Others did." Heero muttered a bit more about the stupidity of doing such a thing until the judge added, "If I recall correctly, and I do, you were the enemy firing at them."  
  
Heero paused, something in his memory flashing quickly, telling him to be very afraid for his immortal soul. "What?"  
  
The judge watched him calmly and asked, "Do you confess, Sinner?"  
  
The memory flashed again, but Heero pushed it down, staring at the floor, not wanting to remember what he'd done; was that a memory or a dream? Had it really happened? Had he... it didn't matter. Nothing mattered now. "Confiteor."  
  
"Your final and most grievous sin, unholy child, is murder of innocents without just cause. This is a breach of the most powerful of the commandments: thou shalt not kill."  
  
Heero paused for a full minute, a pensive expression on his face. Then he looked up and questioned, "Just cause? Didn't I have just cause?"  
  
"No, you did NOT, Breaker of Commandments, Vilest of Sinners."  
  
He nearly rolled eyes at the names but held himself back. "Just what is your definition of 'just cause' ?"  
  
The judge regarded him as if Heero were a complete idiot, and the answer to his question were blatantly obvious. "There is NEVER just cause for murder, save when His Holiness deems it so."  
  
Heero sighed, glaring at the floor. Just because God didn't "speak" to him, his cause wasn't "just." Life wasn't fair, he knew that, but who knew death would be equally unjust? "Confiteor." He spat the word out.  
  
"What was that, Sinner?" The judge asked, narrowing his pink eyes as if he could look straight through Heero and see the soul's motives. If Heero didn't mean it, the confession was nothing.  
  
His voice was hard and he met the judge glare-for-glare. His eyes seemed to shout, "You heard me." Instead, Heero spoke the one word asked of him, pronouncing the syllables slowly like one speaking to a stubborn child. "Con-fee-tay-or."  
  
Leaning back to his full height, the judge exhaled sharply, the scroll disappearing from his grasp. "Kyrie eleison, Heero Yuy. God has mercifully forgiven you and is allowing you to pay your sins now, if you have the strength he provides to the Righteous alone. You will atone for your sins individually, beginning with the most despicable, then the next, and so on until you have paid for each. Then you shall be judged and sentenced accordingly. Do you understand, Sinner?"  
  
"I do."  
  
The judge gestured to the chair with a slim, graceful hand. "Have a seat, then." 


	6. Struggling

A/N  
-This book, Book one of three, is going to be about nine chapters. I will write them all. I will force myself, if I have to. Most of them are all half-written by now anyway. I haven't decided if I'm going to write the other two books or not, but it's not looking well for them. Death's Promise, though, against my better judgment, will be completed. (However, that doesn't mean it won't end on a cliffhanger, because it will.)  
  
-I know, it's been a LONG time since I've posted, but I've been very worried about this chapter. I think it's too much gore. ...But I like the gory factor because it's supposed to horrify you: that's the whole point of Purgatory. What's Purgatory without the gore? So I'm posting it anyway, even though I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not finding a better way than blood to get my point across.  
  
-In case you don't want to reread the whole fic up to this point, here's a brief summary to refresh your memory: Trowa and Quatre are on their way to Duo's home: Hephess. Duo is waiting outside while Heero's stuck being "judged" in Purgatory. Heero's got a long list of sins to be punished for, and his judge is starting off with the worst: murder of innocents. Can Heero make it through all of Purgatory's tests and reclaim his ticket to Heaven?  
  
-MAJOR warning: The following two chapters contain intense violence, disturbing imagery, and multiple deaths (of mostly minor characters).  
  
  
Chapter 6: Struggling  
  
After Heero had sat down, the judge had begun pacing, rambling off word after word of flowing Latin phrases. The judge was still speaking to him now and had been speaking for... how long was it? Heero couldn't tell. It was too long, though. He couldn't translate as fast as the judge was talking; all he managed was a word here or there. Mostly, "Our Lord"s, "forgiveness"s and "mercy"s were repeated, but Heero distinctly heard "sin" and "punishment" multiple times. The soul assumed he was being lectured with something the equivalent of "the rules" for these tasks he was going to be subjected to. As far as Heero was concerned, the rules didn't matter; he was powerless. He was stuck here to be subjected to any number of tortures until this sadistic "angel" gave him leave. Heero had no control over the situation and hadn't ever since he had self-detonated back what seemed like years ago. God, he missed his Gundam. He missed the familiar. He missed knowing everything. He missed being the one doing the threatening. But most of all, he missed the power, the control. Heero didn't like not having control. From life to death, he'd gone from terrorist to helpless victim in a matter of seconds. What he would do to regain something even remotely close to that power he'd lost...   
  
Somewhere during these thoughts, the judge paused in his pacing. With a few more words of Latin, he glared down at Heero. "Let's begin, shall we?" With that, the chair Heero was sitting on gave out suddenly, and the soul fell to the white and pink ground with a thud. He stood up quickly, looking around for something to accuse for the loss of his seat (and his dignity), but found nothing. Nothing. His chair had simply vanished.  
  
Unmoved as ever, the tall, cloaked man began lecturing again, this time in English. "Your punishment begins now. Have you any questions, you will ask them immediately and without babbling. Idiotic questions will be ignored; questioning my or Our Lord's logical processes will not be tolerated. Feel free to scream, but it will go unheard. You are past the point of pity, sinner. Begging and bribery will only waste Our time. Understood?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "Your first and most trying task is retribution for your sin against innocents, the murder of. You will complete the task I assign both efficiently and completely; if you do not, you will be sent back on your current path to Damnation. Is THAT understood." The judge remained staring blankly, waiting for a response.  
  
After a minute of returning the silent glare, Heero asked, "Are you done?"  
  
The judge's left eye twitched, but he remained otherwise unmoved. "Yes."  
  
"Then I understand."  
  
Raising his sharp chin, and shaking a few strands of white hair from his face, the judge barked back, "Good," and before Heero could blink, there was a clean, silver pistol in the man's hand, its handle extended outward. "Take it." Thinking this was obviously a test of some kind, Heero snorted lightly and made no move. The judge nearly sighed. "It won't bite you. In fact, I should think you'd be quite good friends with it by now." His face hardened once again as he repeated, "Take it, or you fail."  
  
Heero missed knowing everything. He really, really missed it. Inhaling, then exhaling sharply, Heero reached out and took the gun, examining it, then questioning the being he'd taken it from. "Well?"  
  
"Hand it back."  
  
Heero looked at the judge with a raised eyebrow. What kind of test was this? After a few moments of internal debate, he attempted to place the gun back in the judge's hand. When the gun didn't drop from his palm, he tried again. And again. Heero began shaking his hand, but still the gun wouldn't fall from his grip. Angry now, Heero looked up to lock eyes with his tormentor, silently questioning why he couldn't let go of the weapon.  
  
"It's fully loaded." The judge stated calmly as if Heero should already be aware of this. "After you fire it, it will still be fully loaded. When you fire it again, it will still be fully loaded." As an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and don't bother with the safety: there is none. In fact, you don't even have to cock it. Just pull the trigger, and it fires." Smirking cynically, the judge asked, "Wonderful invention, don't you agree?"  
  
Heero stared at the pistol currently glued by something unknown to his hand. It never had to be reloaded. Ever. And without having to cock it, his reaction time would be even higher... He would have killed for a gun like that when he was alive. And, no, the irony in that didn't escape him. Now that he wasn't alive, though... Well, he had a very, very bad feeling about what this gun he couldn't let go of would be used for.  
  
***  
  
"Quatre, this is Hilde, my sister shade." Trowa gestured to the girl sitting on the chair before them, who smiled brightly in reply. "She's Hephess' gatekeeper."  
  
Hilde nodded, her short, dark hair bobbing up and down with the motion. "Proud to say I am! Welcome to Hephess, Quatre!"  
  
The angel smiled shyly. "Thank you." He looked behind her, taking in the large structure there. "The gate is certainly impressive."  
  
Giggling, Hilde shrugged. "Well, Duo-sama seems to like it."  
  
"I'll bet he does..." Quatre trailed off, still marveling at Hephess' mighty gate. It was an onyx wall, stretching far off into the distance in both directions. It had been painted in shades of grey, and the swirls, loops and dots formed complex images. Some were simply monsters of sorts, but there were strikingly realistic renditions of humans, angels and what could only be shades.   
  
Hilde sat before the wall in a black leather chair, leaning back casually with her feet propped up on thin air. "Yeah," the Gatekeeper trailed off, her own dark eyes now scanning the gate. "It really is something." She turned back to speak to Quatre excitedly, kicking her feet off her invisible perch so she could lean forward. "And it all means something, too." She gestured vaguely with her hands. "There are hidden meanings and things. Like each of us shades has our own symbol up there somewhere. And Duo-sama is constantly adding stuff to it, though he hasn't in a while since he's been kind of busy lately."  
  
Quatre's gaze shifted from the wall to Hilde. "Adding?" He paused in thought, then finished, "Death-sama made this?"  
  
Hilde laughed. "Of course. How do you think the gates got here? They just poofed into existence?" Quatre mumbled something incoherent. Hilde finished, "All of The Original Three made their own gates. Don't ask me who made Human's or Purgatory's, though, because I have no idea."  
  
"Oh, I see..."  
  
Trowa interrupted their musings by addressing Quatre, "Would you like to go in?"  
  
Quatre blinked out of his stare and laughed softly. "Yes, of course." He smiled, meeting Hilde's eyes once again. "It's been nice to meet you, Hilde. We'll have to talk again sometime."  
  
Hilde brushed him off with a wave of her hand, "There's only one way in or out of Hephess, and I happen to be the keeper of that way." She laughed lightly, then smiled. "Don't worry about it, Quatre. I'll still be right here when you decide to leave."  
  
***  
  
"You are one of the vilest sinners to cross the Earth, Heero Yuy." The judge continued onto another of his speeches. "The amusing part of this is that you don't even realize it."   
  
Heero was hardly amused, but was too busy trying to pry the gun from his fingers to notice.  
  
"Oh sure," the winged man continued, pacing once more, "Your conscience, or whatever it is you sinners have, is telling you how evil you are. It's telling you that you deserve to be in Hell, that you are the scum of the Earth..." He paused, turning to face Heero, "It's right, of course." Heero looked up from the gun to glare silently for a few seconds before resuming his hopeless task. The judge picked up his leisurely pacing again, "But there is another part of you. There is a part, an albeit quieter part, that is telling you that everything you do, no matter what you do, is justified. It is telling you that you were used, that you didn't know any better, that it wasn't your fault... along with a number of other silly excuses and rationalizations: anything to pass the blame."  
  
Heero'd given up on letting go of the gun now and was simply staring at it, listening. His brow furrowed at what the judge said. Rationalizing? He wasn't rationalizing. It was the truth! The fact that he was a killer WASN'T his fault... And his killing WAS justified... It was.  
  
Leaning forward, the judge hissed. "THAT is the part we are here to kill." He leaned back to his full height, clasping his pale hands behind his back. "You are NOT innocent, Heero Yuy. The people you killed YOU killed. Until you accept the blame, you cannot be relieved of it." He paused, allowing a scroll to appear in his hands. He looked over it briefly, then spoke, "In your first five years as a murderer, you slaughtered thirty-three people. However, you are fortunate; those thirty-three were vile sinners, like yourself, and are all burning in Hell, as we speak, for their transgressions." He paused and gave Heero a pointed look, something akin to saying that Heero would most likely be seeing all thirty-three of them shortly. Looking back to the scroll, he resumed, "The first true innocents you killed were all in one place: an apartment building that multiple explosions, set and detonated by your hand, reduced to little more than smoldering rubble."  
  
Still staring at the gun in his hand, Heero nodded, just barely, in recollection.  
  
"Can you name them?"  
  
He looked up. "What?"  
  
"The three-hundred forty-two innocent people you killed in that explosion. Can you name them?"  
  
He thought it over for a moment, then replied slowly, "...No."  
  
"Then, as we progress, I shall make you aware." With a short wave of his delicate chalk-colored hand, a young girl appeared between them. She looked down at her feet, and from his vantage point, all Heero could make out was her hair, which looked the color and texture of the hair in a piece of corn: soft like silk and pale yellow like the moon. The judge continued speaking as if the child were not there, "The first two you killed in the explosion were sinners as well. In fact, they both passed through here unsuccessfully. This, however," he gestured to the child, "Is Selene Deswals, age eight and three-months." Upon hearing her name, the girl looked up briefly, her wide topaz-blue eyes searching; when her eyes met Heero's, though, she immediately dropped her head, once more staring at her shiny black shoes and white socks: her favorite ones, the ones with the little pink lace around the tops.  
  
Heero frowned, looking from the girl, to the judge. Why did he have a bad feeling about this...? The weight in his hand was forgotten for the moment. The judge continued in his speech. "The Lord and I have deduced, Heero Yuy, that though you feel guilt, you do not trust in it. You do not believe your Guilt or your Conscience, and that is what this test shall accomplish. You do not believe that you are responsible for the deaths of those whom you killed, thus you believe you have no reason to repent. Here, now, we shall change you perspective on this. There will be no way around it this time, sinner; no way your twisted mind can deny it." He pointed down at the child. "You killed her in life, Heero Yuy. It will be the same when you kill her right here, right now, with the gun in your hand: the gun that you cannot deny picking up, the gun you will not be able to deny pulling the trigger of."  
  
Heero's eyes widened with horrible realization as he looked at the gun in his hand. He shook his head slowly, then faster, his mouth opening in protests he was too shocked to speak. "You..." He didn't finish the sentence, unsure of what exactly he was trying to say. This wasn't happening; it couldn't be happening! It wasn't real!  
  
"Selene." The judge spoke softly, and the girl looked up at him, her eyes wide and unassuming. He bent over to eye-level with her, then pointed at Heero. "He's going to kill you now."  
  
The child, still too young to comprehend her own mortality, looked over and up at Heero, but said nothing. She remained motionless in her stare, waiting for him to clarify.  
  
"Kill her, Heero Yuy." The judge's voice said smoothly, but Heero's eyes saw only the tiny girl before him. "Why do you hesitate? It's no different. You've killed her once, sinner. Do it again."  
  
Heero shook his head feebly, but was unable to deny the truth verbally.  
  
The judge repeated, "Kill her. She's already dead."  
  
He was right; she was already dead. She was already dead. Repeating that mantra in his head, Heero slowly raised his gun at arm's length, on a downward slope. She was already dead. It didn't matter if he killed her. She was already dead. The gun was only two inches from the girl's wide blue eyes. She looked around the barrel, unfazed that this was real, that death was real, or that death was about to happen to her. They remained silent for some time. When the judge suddenly demanded, "Kill her." Heero blinked, his finger twitched, and he pulled the trigger, still at unbearably close range.  
  
The gun was loud. With the shot fired, the resulting echo bounced off invisible pink walls before fading into nothing.  
  
There was blood on Heero's face. It was on his shirt, on his exposed arms, drenching the gun in his hand. There was more blood on the ground. The girl had fallen backward like a rag doll, her body splayed out across the pink ground as if some child had dropped her carelessly in its haste. Most of her white dress and her pristine white socks were still crisp and clean, with only splatters of red. Her golden hair, though, was matted, coated in the gooey maroon stuff. Where there was less blood, her hair was reddish-orange; only a few select strands of it remained blonde. There was not much to say for her face, or her skull: her nose, or her eyes, her lips, or her once-round cheeks. There was not much to say because there was not much of them at all, save fragments of bone, open tendons, one pathetic eyeball, dangling from a sinewy nerve, and blood. She had been such a small child, but there was so much blood...   
  
Heero remained staring downward, unblinking, his mouth open just slightly. It was pointless to scream, or cry, or close his eyes. What good would it do? The image of the dead child was permanently emblazoned in his mind like a fire he'd been staring at for too long. Even if he did close his now glistening eyes, Heero was sure that the child would still be there waiting for him to look again, still laid out in a puddle of her own red blood, a harsh sight against the swirling white ground. "What has changed, Heero Yuy?" He looked up to find the judge staring down at him emotionlessly. "A death is a death. A life is a life. You've taken hers now as you took it two years ago." He paused, letting this sink in, then questioned again, "What has changed?"   
  
Heero shook his head, turning his back on the girl and the judge alike. Softly, he choked out, "Nothing." When he looked back up, the judge was in front of him, though he assumed that the child - Selene -'s body was still behind them both, that it would be lying there if he were to turn an inch or two around. "Nothing has changed."  
  
"Exactly."  
  
***  
  
Trowa had been giving Quatre the grand tour for almost a half hour. Hephess reminded the angel of a medieval castle: it was huge, it was dark, it had many, many twists, turns, secret passages and more, and it was very drafty. Trowa's description of it had fit: it was, indeed, colorless. Everything was either black, off-white, or in between, and the blonde-haired angel felt out-of place. The feeling Trowa couldn't describe, however, Quatre felt he could sum up in two words: cold, and depressing. To Quatre, it felt the like the walls would close in on him or a monster of some sort would appear out of the shadows to ferry him away into the omnipotent darkness. It didn't feel evil, perhaps, but it was definitely unnerving.  
  
Trowa, on the other hand, felt at home.  
  
"This place is so large..." Quatre pointed out again. He couldn't help it; the place was daunting.  
  
"It's no larger than Heaven." Trowa replied calmly as the two continued walking at a leisurely pace. "In fact, it's considerably smaller. Possibly no more than the size of Eden, if I've heard correctly."  
  
Quatre acquiesced, "I suppose." His eyes continued to wander around the place. Everywhere he looked, however, faded off into shadows, so actual distance was hard to gauge. "But it's so... empty." He looked over at Trowa, "Where is everyone?"  
  
Looking around, Trowa answered, "Duo-sama is still at Purgatory. You've met Hilde. Wufei, my brother shade, is out on his shift, collecting souls from Human. Catherine, my other sister... Well, I'm sure she's lurking about." He trailed off.  
  
"What about everyone else?"  
  
Trowa turned to look at Quatre, pausing in his step. "What do you mean?"  
  
"There IS no one else, Stranger." A female voice returned. "Just us moving shadows."  
  
Quatre looked around, but saw nothing. He crept marginally closer to Trowa, who spoke flatly, "Quatre, this is my sister: Catherine."  
  
A tall girl with rich brown hair curling about her cheeks suddenly appeared and stuck out her tongue at Trowa. "Spoil sport." Trowa shrugged. Catherine smirked and turned to the still stunned angel. She held out her hand to Quatre, "Pleased to meet you, angel. "  
  
Stepping back from the extended hand, Quatre shook his head and smiled. "It's nice to meet you, too, Catherine. But, please, call me Quatre."  
  
The two stood in an uncomfortable silence for a minute, the shade's hand extended, but not accepted. Catherine frowned for a moment, dropping her hand back to her side in dejection. After a moment, however, she gasped in realization, "Oh! Right, the whole 'I'm-holy-so-don't-touch-me' thing." She laughed once sharply. "Makes me glad I'm not an angel. What a pain in the ass to deal with!"  
  
Quatre laughed politely, "Well, that's one way of putting it..."  
  
The three stood in another awkward silence for a moment; the angel staring at his porcelain hands, Trowa looking off to the side at nothing specifically, and the other shade looking suspiciously from one to the other. Then, Catherine spoke up, "Hey, Trowa, I'm going to steal Quatre for a minute; you mind?"  
  
Trowa raised a thin dark eyebrow, "What for?"  
  
Catherine shrugged casually, "Oh, nothing really... Just something-- there's something I want to ask Quatre. Yeah," She added quickly, "But I don't want to embarrass the kid, so if you don't mind..." Frowning slightly, Trowa shrugged. Catherine smiled in appreciation, "Thanks, Trowa." And grabbed the cord belt hanging around Quatre's waist, then proceeded to drag him into a different room. Trowa watched their exit with a somewhat suspicious glance, his intense green eyes never leaving the door they went though.  
  
Once Catherine had shut the door behind them, she released Quatre's corded belt. The angel brushed down his white robes, then commented softly, "You didn't have to pull me, Catherine. I would have gladly followed if you had asked me too."  
  
The shade shrugged it off, "Sorry. I'll remember that next time. And call me Cathy."  
  
"Uh, okay, Cathy."  
  
"Now," She rubbed her hands together, "Let's talk about Trowa."  
  
Quatre blinked in surprise, "You mean you brought me here just to talk about your brother behind his back? If you'll forgive my saying so, that's very rude."  
  
Catherine gasped as if hurt. "Talk behind his back?! Never! I wouldn't do such a thing!" The angel began apologizing for his poor assumption when Catherine broke in, "Now, what do you think of him, really?" Her eyes lit up with curiosity.  
  
"What do you mean?" The angel questioned innocently.  
  
Still bright-eyed, the shade asked, "You like him, right?"  
  
"What?" Quatre's cheeks flushed a pale pink, and he ducked his head down where he stood. "I, uh, I don't... I mean... We're... We're friends."  
  
"But you like him, right? You think he's a nice enough guy and all and you really are his friend?"  
  
He looked up relief. "Of course I like him as a friend."  
  
"Have you told him that?"  
  
Quatre laughed once softly, "Told him? Isn't friendship understood?"  
  
She barked a sarcastic laugh. "Not with Trowa." She wandered through the tiny room, stealing glances at Quatre's expression. "If you don't state exactly how you're feeling, he'll never figure it out. At least that's how it is with me. He seems to understand Duo-sama better than the rest of us, but outside of Our Father's feelings, he's a complete rock." She plopped down in a chair Quatre hadn't even notice and crossed her legs over one arm of it. "Don't get me wrong, I love the kid; he's my brother. But he can be so thick sometimes."  
  
"Are you saying..."  
  
Interrupting, Catherine stood up from her chair and began walking slowly toward Quatre. "Look," she paused in front of him, "I'm not saying you should go up to my brother and tell him you're... I don't know," she gestured vaguely, "madly in love him, or anything!" She laughed brightly, "Don't be silly!" Quatre desperately tried not to blush or fidget while still holding Catherine's unassuming gaze. "I'm just saying that maybe you should drop by more often, stay here for a little longer, if you can, that sort of thing." Catherine glanced back at the door, her eyes losing focus. "I worry about him. He's been so distant for so long, even before we met." She turned back to Quatre, "Believe it or not, he was even worse when we were alive."   
  
"You two knew each other then?"  
  
She nodded. Eyes narrowing with resolve, she said sharply. "He needs a friend, Quatre. Now that I'm his sister, it's different between us. Now that we're family, he doesn't act like I'm his friend anymore. We shades all care about each other as siblings, but it's not the same as having real friends, you know? Trowa needs someone who's not obligated to care. And so far you're the only one who's taken interest."  
  
Quatre frowned, "Of course I want to be his friend."  
  
"Well, you know that, and I know that, but, Trowa..." She glanced at the door again.  
  
Taking the hint, he nodded. "I'll tell him. I promise."  
  
Catherine smiled. "That's all I ask." The shade began walking out, but as her hand reached the knob, she turned back and spoke over he shoulder, "You know, you're not such a bad guy, for an angel."  
  
Quatre laughed softly. "You either, Cathy." He smiled genuinely.   
  
Catherine smirked, then walked out and closed the door, leaving the angel alone with his thoughts. He promised Catherine; now he was obligated to tell Trowa how he felt... even though that's not exactly what Catherine had in mind. Still, a promise was a promise, and angels never broke their promises.   
  
Never.  
  
  
Trowa asked as Catherine walked by, "What did you ask?"  
  
Shrugging, she continued walking. "I asked what he thought of you."   
  
His attention suddenly caught, Trowa stared intensely at his fellow shade. "...And?"  
  
She smirked, "None of your business," then seemed to vanish into the shadows, her black robes melding perfectly into the shaded brick wall in front of her as she walked through it. Trowa frowned. That was the disadvantage of speaking with shades: they had a tendency to disappear before the conversation was officially over. Being one, Trowa knew this fact quite well, as he had done it many times himself. It really was convenient during arguments, actually. He turned quickly as a nearby door clicked open, his eyes meeting with Quatre's slim form.   
  
The angel looked around nervously, trying to suppress the shivers running down his spine. It was so cold here... Heaven was cold in parts, but it was always a good cold; light breezes flew in caresses like butterfly kisses in Heaven. Here, every gasp of wind was like a stab of ice. Suddenly feeling very alone, very cold, and slightly lost, Quatre crept his way closer to Trowa, his guide. "Why is it so cold here all of a sudden?" He hadn't really expected an answer, but was merely stating his condition, as if shivering and hugging himself weren't enough to show his level of discomfort.  
  
"Hephess lacks both the fire of hate and the torches of love." At that, Trowa looked off to the side, staring into the darkness with a vacant expression, as he tended to do. "Besides, it's infinitely easier to get lost in a cold wind than in still air."  
  
Quatre frowned, an expression that looked out of place on the angel's soft features. "You want others to get lost?"  
  
Trowa shook his head lightly, his eyes never leaving their glazed state. "Not others." Before Quatre had a chance to mull this over, Trowa had met his gaze. "Would you like to go outside? It would be slightly warmer."  
  
Not understanding the logic behind this paradox but willing to do anything to escape the drilling cold, Quatre nodded and once more began following his guide through the cold, cavernous castle.  
  
***  
  
"Explosion or bullet, Heero Yuy. A button or a gun. Murder is ALWAYS murder." With another wave of the judge's hand, a stranger appeared. He was tall, with broad shoulders. His hair was a rich brown, but his eyes were pale blue. The man looked around, questioning his surroundings with looks only. His eyes passed right over the child's body, unseeing; they paused on Heero, and the man froze, his breath catching. With a gesture at the newly-appeared man, the judge spoke, "Joseph Deswals, age thirty-three: Selene's father."  
  
Immediately after the introduction, Heero sighed softly. Punishment was not the word for this... This was downright inhumane. Were they TRYING to dehumanize him? Was this preparation for Hell? This place was a damned paradox. If he made it through this (and whatever came after it), he'd be better suited for Hell than Heaven! This was wrong. How could God be associated with something so...  
  
"Kill him, Heero Yuy."  
  
Heero's eyes refocused sharply and met those of Selene's father.  
  
Joseph Deswals frowned at him, putting both hands on his hips, "What's going on here? Who are you? How did you get in here?"  
  
Heero looked over to the judge in question.  
  
The judge replied condescendingly. "He died in his apartment. Where else should he think he is?"  
  
"...He thinks I broke into their apartment."  
  
The judge nodded, with a slight shrug.  
  
Great. Toss in "breaking and entering" to his list of sins.  
  
"Kill him." The judge reminded.  
  
Sighing silently, Heero once again forced himself to look up, then raised the gun to chest-level.  
  
The man's eyes widened considerably, and he put up both hands, "Please," He stuttered, "Please, don't... don't shoot me. Ju-- Just take whatever you want; just go. But, please. Please. Don't hurt my family."  
  
Heero looked away and pulled the trigger. He cringed as he heard the body fall to the ground, as he felt the vibrations in his feet from it.  
  
Before he even had a chance to think, he found himself facing the opposite direction once more. The body of the child, Selene, was gone. The floor was clean: pink and white. The judge waved his hand and a slender woman appeared. She had dark blonde hair, almost brown, and dark eyes. She looked like her daughter. The judge introduced her, "Elizabeth Deswals, age thirty-five: Joseph's wife, Selene's mother. She also died in the blast you executed."  
  
The woman's dark eyes met Heero's, then she looked away, her eyes searching for something Heero couldn't see. One of her delicate hands twisted the fabric of her dress nervously.  
  
Before she decided to beg or scream, Heero raised the gun and fired twice, the woman's breath catching and her eyes rolling, before she fell, lifelessly, to the ground.  
  
Frustrated, Heero tried tossing the gun down, but failed repeatedly. With a desperate look, he stared at the judge, "How many more times?"  
  
Steepling his fingers, the judge replied, "Two-hundred, forty-three were killed in that explosion."  
  
Heero shook his head, then looked back up, "How many more... total?"  
  
"In your entire lifetime, sinner?" He snorted softly. "Do you have any idea?"  
  
Not really thinking it over, Heero shrugged. "Hundreds, maybe... Maybe thousands."  
  
The judge nearly laughed, as evidenced by the soft, sarcastic chuckle that escaped him. "Thousands? More like EIGHT-thousand, five-hundred, and twelve people over the course of seven years." He corrected. "And those were the innocent ones. The 'grand total' itself is even larger, I assure you."  
  
"Eight-thousand..." Heero muttered, taking in the scale. He'd... Had he really killed that many? Now... here, he'd only killed... God, he'd only killed three. He had... He had eight-thousand, five-hundred, and nine people left... left to kill.  
  
The judge once again waved his hand, as if brushing away a bad bit of air, and another child appeared. "Innocent number four: Maria Deswals. Six months and twenty-two days old: youngest daughter to Joseph and Elizabeth, baby sister to Selene." He added on with a grim sarcasm, "You'll have to forgive her for not standing. You see, you killed her before she learned how."  
  
Heero closed his eyes, shaking his head. No. No. No! He couldn't do this. He couldn't! It-- It was wrong! It was immoral! It was sick! It was fucking-- It was-- But... But... He... he already had, hadn't he? In his life, in HER life, Heero had killed this child. He'd already killed her. Now he was just repeating the action. But... but pressing that button then and firing this gun now were two entirely different things. Completely different! They were! They were.  
  
...Weren't they?  
  
She was just a baby. She wasn't even a child yet. What the hell was wrong with this place? How could they honestly expect him to...  
  
The judge sneered, "Well? Go ahead, sinner." He added with poison dripping from his tone, "Oh, and look her in the eyes as you kill her this time. She deserves that much, since you took away her future, don't you think?"   
  
Heero raised his head slightly, looking down at the baby's eyes: they were large and blue: surreal blue, pure blue, blue like cotton candy after it's melted in a puddle. Once, a long time ago, Heero had been told that all babies had blue eyes. Vaguely, he wondered if all babies' eyes were as blue as Maria's were. He'd never really taken the time to look at babies' eyes before... He'd never really taken the time to look at a lot of things while he was alive. Or since he's been dead, for that matter. But now... Now... He looked down at the gun in his hand. It was trembling. Courage, he had. Strength, he had. Determination, he had; but none of that could stop his hands from shaking now. This wasn't about strength! But then what the hell WAS it about? Despite the violently trembling hand, he raised the gun. He didn't have to aim. He never had to aim anymore. He hadn't had to aim since he was nine. He wouldn't miss. He never missed.   
  
He squeezed the trigger.   
  
The sound of the gun's explosion remained ringing in his ears long after the shot was fired, and as he blinked, he could see those blue eyes, now a neon orange negative, reflected in the white of Purgatory's swirling floor.   
  
  
The forming puddle of blood was the color of rust and thick, thick like warm molasses. 


	7. Falling

A/n  
- Wo-hoo, we finally get a shounen ai warning for this chapter. (Sort of... you'll see.) Ya'll happy yet? *grins at the double irony of this warning*  
-And Wufei makes it into the fic! ..albeit briefly...  
-But don't forget: like the previous chapter, this one is graphic-intense. Beware of violence.  
-I think I actually like the way this chapter worked out...  
  
  
Chapter 7: Falling  
  
"Heero Yuy, you have been punished for the murder of innocents without just cause. What do you have to say for yourself?"  
  
The soul stared forward silently, unmoving.  
  
"Heero Yuy, answer the question."  
  
He looked up like a lost child, his eyes black, empty.   
  
Clenching his jaw, the judge asked, "Does Satan-sama hold your tongue now, sinner? Answer Our Lord's question, or get out."  
  
When he finally spoke, the voice was not his. It was quiet, deathly quiet, muted by his thousands of violent acts that had taken place over what felt like years (but what may only have been minutes to the outside world). "Confiteor quia peccavi nimis." He spoke slowly, as if the words were ill-suited to his mouth. "Non confundar in aeternum." He spoke without confidence or arrogance. "Gere curam mei funis."  
  
The silver-haired being nodded once sharply, looked away, and muttered, "Kyrie eleison. You have passed the first of your tasks to becoming cleansed." Reluctantly, he began walking away. "I will give you an hour to 'recover,' then your punishment shall recommence." He opened a knob Heero had not seen him grab and walked through a door that matched the swirling expanse around it. The door closed behind him soundlessly, and the knob vanished with it.  
  
Something told Heero any sort of recovery would take longer than an hour.   
  
Much, much longer.  
  
Heero was left there, alone in the room. He'd never felt so alone. The swirling pure white, tainted pink, and impure red of the floor, the walls, and the ceiling swirled and folded over each other again and again as he watched mindlessly, the end to one color fading, only to become the beginning of another. Heero sat there, unable to do more, unable to heal the emptiness inside of him. He was alone, inside and out. His only companions now were a rickety wooden chair, the heavy weight of a gun that had been used to kill innocents, and his voracious, insatiable guilt.  
  
***  
  
Quatre sat on the very edge of a fountain, his ankles crossed and his arms draped around his knees as he stared up into the endlessly white sky. The conversation with Catherine played over and over in his head as he sat, half listening at Trowa's feeble attempts at conversation.  
  
The shade was sitting in the grey strands of grass, plucking blades and twirling them nervously in his fingers while thinking of what to say next. Was it his fault he wasn't a good conversationalist? Well, what was he supposed to discuss? The weather? Hardly. The politics of Heaven, Hell, and Hephess' strained relationship? No, better not to bring up something that would upset Quatre further. ...And the angel certainly looked upset about something. Trowa watched Quatre's unmoving face profiled by the steadily moving black water of the ornate fountain. Quatre didn't belong here. Maybe that was why he was upset. Hesitantly, Trowa ventured, "Do you want to leave?"  
  
Quatre flinched at the sudden breaking of his thoughts, and he turned his head to look questioningly down at Trowa, "Do you want me to?"  
  
His olive-green eyes widened marginally. "I... No..." He muttered, then looked back at the grass he was still unconsciously ripping up. "I... If you want to." Feeling Quatre's eyes still on him, Trowa continued without looking up. "You looked... upset, is all." Finally, he looked up. "Are you?"  
  
"Upset?" Quatre looked down at the tops of his bare feet. "Not really."  
  
"Homesick?"  
  
Quatre looked at him again, then shrugged delicately. "A bit." After a moment, he elaborated, "I do miss Heaven, but... that's not what's bothering me."  
  
He tried to stifle his curiosity; honestly he did. But Trowa had to ask, even though he was almost dreading the answer. "What is?"  
  
"Well..." He started, then paused, thinking along the same lines he had been for a while now. "About what Catherine said..."  
  
Frowning, "What did she say to you?"  
  
"Trowa," He turned completely from his perch on the fountain, planting both bare feet into the soft grass. "Do you know the saying, 'It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?' "  
  
His frown deepened marginally. "No." He shook his head, then began, "Quatre, what does--"  
  
"I love you." He blurted out.  
  
***  
  
The hour was here and gone too quickly, and the judge had returned to the tiny room of Purgatory in which Heero sat. The judge raised a thin eyebrow. "Are we ready to begin again?"  
  
"No," Heero deadpanned. "But go ahead anyway."  
  
The judge rolled his eyes and "hmph"ed, before starting into another speech. "You've killed many people in your lifetime, sinner, but you've accounted for their deaths. However, you have not accounted for another sin: dishonoring the Sabbath day. For this, I will not judge you. Rather, I will allow a slight variation, for I have deemed it appropriate."  
  
Heero's eyes widened. This did not sound good. But he managed to calm himself down with reassurances of, "What could be worse than what you've just done?"  
  
The judge gestured once more with a thin, bony hand and a large group of people appeared. Heero recognized them all immediately. The judge addressed him, "These are a handful of people you've killed, Heero Yuy, and by now, I hope you know them all by name." Heero nodded mutely. Continuing, the man crossed his arms and stood a bit taller. "These 93 individuals have decided on proper punishment for your grievous sin, and they have all agreed that it is fitting." He paused, then addressed Heero darkly, "They've agreed to help you redeem yourself through punishment, sinner." He waited again for Heero to respond.  
  
Honestly, what was the judge waiting for? For Heero to apologize? Or to THANK them for putting him through... whatever it was he was about to endure? He sincerely doubted that thanks were in order. Heero glared at the judge. The winged man glared back, then a woman's voice interrupted. Heero looked over to where the voice had come from. She was a heavyset woman with dark hair, dressed in a flowered dress that was old and weathered. Heero recognized her. Fantelle Travallier: daughter of French peasants, wife of a French peasant, mother of six French peasants. She shouted at Heero in rustic French, her facial expressions wild with anger. "Yes, yes! Retribution for us now, sinner. You killed us. We kill you. The world is balanced again, no?"  
  
Heero missed a few words because of her accent, but he got the general idea of the message. He asked back in broken French, "What must I do for forgiveness?"  
  
The group of people all shouted back answers in the same rural French until the woman, Fantelle, shouted over them. "I will tell you, dog! You will taste your own fire, and you will burn with us." The group shouted agreements.  
  
Heero closed his eyes. God have mercy.  
  
***  
  
Immediately after his confession, Quatre bowed his head and muttered. "I-- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."  
  
"You... love me?"  
  
Quatre smiled sadly and nodded, then gently peeked his eyes upward through his blonde bangs to gauge Trowa's reaction.  
  
The shade blinked a few times, then asked softly, "Why?"  
  
Raising his head, Quatre asked incredulously, "Why?" He paused for a minute, thinking, the replied equally softly. "I don't really know..." Suddenly realizing how this could be, and probably was being, taken negatively, Quatre continued, "I don't know why, but I do. You... You're like no one I've ever met."   
  
Trowa had been staring at the grass once more, but now looked up suddenly, meeting Quatre's eyes. "Why are you telling me this, angel?" He shook his head once, then asked sharply, "What do you want from me?"  
  
***  
  
One second, Heero was standing in a swirling white, red, and pink room, being glared at by an angry judge and a rather large angry mob. The next second, however, he was standing in a very different room.  
  
It was a church, though the term did not suit the place he was standing in. The walls were stone, mostly, but were crumbling apart. There were no stained-glass windows, no ornate tapestries, no statues, not even a cross hanging anywhere. Instead of pews, there were rows and rows of folding chairs and most of them were sitting just behind dirty people, who stood, singing. Only a few of these people had bibles. The song was unfamiliar to Heero, but it didn't help that there was no music to accompany the often painfully tone-deaf voices. He assumed it was a hymn. In fact, the only way Heero actually deemed this run-down shack to be a church was that in the very front of the small, crowded, putrid, humid room, stood an elderly man in black with a white collar, cradling a large bible, and singing loudly.  
  
A few minutes later, the song ended and, as one, the people sat down. Heero remained standing at the back of the church, straight down the isle that the makeshift pews had formed. Uncomfortable, Heero looked around. There were some empty seats over there; it couldn't hurt. He shuffled over to one and sat down, watching the back of the people's heads before him. The preacher's voice droned on about God and Mercy and Forgiveness. Frankly, Heero had heard enough of the from the judge to last more than one lifetime. Rather than listen, he began scanning the people's faces he could make out. Yes, he recognized them. All of them. They were the French peasants.  
  
***  
  
Quatre shied away slightly. "Want...?" He shook his head, "I don't want anything."  
  
"I don't believe you."  
  
***  
  
A heavy rumbling started, but no one, save Heero, seemed to notice. Heero looked up, then around as the rumbling in his feet grew stronger. An earthquake? ...No. It was too rhythmic... Where had he felt something like this before...? Heero looked around to see what everyone else thought of the noise, but no one moved. It was like they didn't even hear it. ...Or they were ignoring it. Heero suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach.  
  
As the rumbling continued in steady bursts, a mechanical whining began faintly. As the seconds passed, the whining got louder and louder until it was almost a roar. Then it stopped. Heero looked around, but no one said anything, or even looked away from the sermon. Even when Heero stood up, no one paid him any mind. He glared around the room, trying to find where the noise had come from. Finally, his eyes fell on one dusty window. Just vaguely through the grime, Heero could make out something... it was metallic white against the powder-blue sky, and there was a light... two glowing green lights. Heero would have recognized his beloved monster anywhere, no matter the conditions:  
  
It was Wing.  
  
***  
  
Trowa stood up, brushing the conversation away. "You should probably go home anyway. They're probably worried for you."  
  
Hopping off of the fountain, Quatre stood up and argued back. "You have to believe me." The shade looked away. "...Please, Trowa."  
  
Trowa sighed. "Don't."  
  
"I don't understand." Quatre frowned, balling his fists in frustration. "What did I say wrong?"  
  
Trowa still refused to meet the angel's intense gaze. "Just don't, Quatre."  
  
"If I have to prove I love you, I will."  
  
***  
  
Heero was frantic now. If that were his Gundam outside, and it was, and if he were in a room with 93 people he had killed with said Gundam, and he was...   
  
He shouted, despite the so-called "sanctity of the church," yelling at the people to, "Run! Get out!" even though he knew they could not possibly avoid the coming blast, no matter how fast they ran. Outside, Wing lifted its weapon to eye-level. Heero, seeing this out of the corner of his eye, nearly screamed from his own helplessness. Scanning faces, he shouted, begging them to acknowledge him, to listen to him, anything! After a few more moments of futile shouting, his eyes met with the profile of a young boy: a young boy sitting next to his mother, coloring on a piece of paper in his lap, a young boy with messy brown hair and shining blue eyes. Heero didn't know his name. The boy turned his head, bright cyan eyes matching Heero's own horrified navy. The boy looked at Heero, then at his own lap where his paper lay. He then looked back at Heero innocently and held up the paper he had been coloring on. Only the corners of it were still blank white. The rest was a mass of yellow, orange, and red crayon scribbles. They all looked random; however, there was on thing Heero could make out that was obviously intentional. In the very center of the paper was a word, thick and shining in bold black crayon: "BOOM."  
  
***  
  
"Just forget it." Trowa started walking away. "I'm sorry."  
  
"Trowa." Quatre took a few steps after him. "Please, wait..." The shade, ignoring him, continued walking. Finally, "Trowa, just listen to me!" Quatre ran forward and grabbed Trowa's arm, halting him.   
  
Trowa turned around slowly, staring at the pale hand that still held his wrist. He looked up at Quatre in shock, but said nothing.  
  
Releasing his grip, Quatre took a step back, then looked at the palm of his hand. It was shaking. He bit his lower lip softly, then smiled sadly up at Trowa. "Do you believe me yet?"  
  
***  
  
There was a screaming as the rifle powered up, then rumble, like thunder, began. Louder, and louder, and louder. The heavy booming became a high-pitched whine, and the dirty windows shattered inward, grey glass shards slicing into naked flesh as they rained downward, sparkling. Heero fell to the ground and covered his head, knowing it was pointless, but unable to resist his instincts. The man in black on the pulpit, continued preaching, telling of God's salvation and the glory of Heaven, even as a wave of fire followed the shattering boom that had broken the windows. The fire swelled and grew, pouring into the empty window frames like lava, crashing through the entire right wall of the small cathedral in a wave of flames. Heero looked up at the intense hissing noise, watching with wide eyes as the flame seemed to slow down, pausing before it slammed into him. His eyes searched around in those few seconds, and focused on the preacher; but what Heero saw made his eyes widen and his chest grow tight. Instead of the old holy man, Duo now stood in his place, Death himself, wearing the preacher's simple black garments, the white collar nestled against his pale neck, the large book pressed into his hands. Eyes flaming with violet light, Duo looked sinister as they locked gazes, motioning for Heero's silence with one thin finger pressed against his grinning lips.   
  
The extended moment ended in a flash, and the fire fell on Heero, slamming him into the ground at the weight of it, burning off his hair, then clothes, then flesh, then muscles, boiling his blood and bursting his veins, all in a single painful instant. The bricks and mortar of the church soon lost their hold and fell inwards, crushing everything, smothering everything in a cloud of white and red powder, extinguishing the bulk of flames and crushing any possible survivors.  
  
Silence was in the valley as a lone Gundam stomped away from the smoking mass, seeking its next target. Nothing moved, save chalky grey powder, which rose and hovered around the rubble in ghostly forms, circling around the still-burning piles of brick, wood and bodies. The area was cleared, all trees had been leveled, all animals killed, and only the crackle of fire mourned over the cathedral's grave. The church was gone forever; only the fires, the smoke, and death remained.  
  
***  
  
"Wufei!" Hilde stood up to greet him, smiling brightly. "Welcome back!" Her smile faltered slightly. "You're back kind of early, Fei. Did you take your shift's souls to heaven, hell, and back already?"  
  
The dark boy remained stony-faced as he replied sharply. "Where is Duo-sama?"  
  
Hilde, reading his expression frowned deeply. "Purgatory, I guess. Or going to Hell, I don't know which. Depends how long..." She trailed off as Wufei glared back over his shoulder in the direction of Purgatory. Hilde whispered, "What's up? What's going on? What happened to your group?"  
  
Wufei clenched his fists, still frowning deeply. "We have a problem."  
  
***  
  
Heero opened his eyes wide with a start, looking around quickly. After a moment, his eyes came back into focus and he saw the judge standing there, looking impassively down at him with dull pink eyes. "Heero Yuy, you have been justly punished for your sin of dishonoring the Sabbath day. What do you have to say for yourself?"   
  
The soul remained staring for a minute, the horrid scene replaying over and over in his eyes before he spoke. "I deserve worse."  
  
"You speak not in Latin. Do you mock me?"  
  
Heero looked up sharply. "What? Of course not." The judge remained staring, waiting, his lips tight with frustration. Finally, realization hit Heero and he sighed. Bowing his head, he whispering the phrases. "Confiteor-- Confeiteor quia peccavi nimis. Non confundar in aeternum." Sighing Heero ran one sticky palm across his clammy forehead, pushing his fingers up through his sweaty bangs in a nervous gesture. Hallucination or not, that was an intense experience. God, what had he done? "Gere curam mei funis."  
  
Reluctantly, the man replied, "Kyrie elei--," but he stood midway through the phrase, staring at Heero with a new suspicion. He reached down and grabbed Heero's arm, then pulled the soul to his feet, glaring at him. "What's this?"  
  
Heero raised an eyebrow, meeting the man's eyes. "What's what?"  
  
Without warning, the judge reached forward and pushed Heero's bangs back, glaring at his forehead. "This." He spoke with a new venom in his voice. "How dare you waste my time, Sinner! Had I known of this mark, I would have cast you out immediately! How dare you lie to the Lord, foul child of Darkness!"  
  
"What!" Heero jerked his neck back, forcing the man's hand off his forehead. "What mark? What are you--"  
  
The judge scoffed, turning away from him. "Get out of my sight, Sinner. You are to leave this place at once. Take the door behind you." Leave? Why?! He had just gotten here! What was this guy-- Wait a minute; Heero didn't remember any door. He turned, and, to his shock, a door was indeed there, not two feet away from him. He swore that wasn't there a minute ago... Heero turned back to face the judge. "Why? I don't under--"  
  
The winged man spoke again, chopping off Heero's questioning. "I will waste no more time on YOU, demonic slave! Out of my presence." And with that, the man walked quickly away, fading into the swirling pink and red of Purgatory. Heero remained standing there, too confused to move. What had just happened? Had he just undergone all that punishment for-- for nothing?! He-- He'd ki-- He had ki-- And then he'd sat in that church, watched, witnessed those innocents' sk-- skin as it... and their-- the the-- melting... their bones and... the smell... burning... That was for nothing? For nothing! He himself had been boiled to death for G--oh, God, he felt sick. He could smell the noxious fumes of burning flesh again; he could taste the ash on his breath, the cinders in his nostrils, causing his eyes to sting and water. He could feel the heat burrowing like tiny worms into his skin. No, no, no! It wasn't real! Nothing was real! He had to get out of here; he had to get away, outside. He needed air. He needed to see the endless white, that damned endless white, not these vomit-, blood-, fire-colored walls! He needed to see the real Duo, not the twisted interpretation from that... dream. He stumbled forward, grabbed the doorknob, and heaved it, practically falling through the portal into the white mists of Limbo once more.   
  
Outside, he saw Duo sitting, playing some type of solitary card game on the pure white ground. Duo looked up and smiled brightly, but before he could say a word, Heero held up his hand, halting him. "Don't." Duo simply watched curiously as Heero turned where he stood, facing the way he had just come. He stood there while he gathered his thoughts, pushing away the imagery of the burning church for pure hard facts. He was forced out of Purgatory prematurely. Why? Something about being a child of darkness... Something about a mark on his forehead... Heero looked up and glared at the gate he had just come through. The exit to Purgatory was the exact reverse of the entrance, a mirror image. It looked the same, but the writing was backwards.   
  
However, Heero barely noticed this as his attention was focused purely on the mirror in front of him. He glared at it, face to face with his nonexistent reflection. Damn it, now what was he supposed to do? Evidently, there was something horrible on his forehead, and, obviously, he couldn't see his own forehead without a mirror. But he had no reflection, so he couldn't see it even if he HAD one. There was nothing he could do. He was forced out of Purgatory, his last hope at salvation, and he had no idea why. He didn't know how to rectify the situation; hell, he didn't even know if he COULD rectify it. He had the answer on his own damn head and had no way of seeing it, never mind doing anything about it! This was Hell, already, wasn't it? This... this Purgatory really was the beginning of Hell. He was in Hell already, wasn't he? He had to be! This was torture! And what was worse, he couldn't even see his own damn reflection!  
  
Growling, Heero reached back as far as he could, forming a fist and slammed his arm forward, fully intent on shattering the traitorous mirror. To his disgust, his hand went straight through the reverse portal, and he almost fell forward from the sheer momentum. Luckily, he caught himself before falling, but he still managed to look like an idiot in the process. He stood up, then looked down at the white below him, sighing. He shook his head over and over again, trying to get the hundreds of thoughts to just shut up. How had this happened? What was happening? The only thing he was sure of was that it was all his own damn fault. He was such a fucking--  
  
"Heero?" The cards were gone now, and Duo was standing, trying to peer around Heero's back to see the soul's expression. "You okay?"  
  
Heero turned slowly, watching Duo with dead eyes. "Yes," he replied flatly. "I'm fine."  
  
Duo laughed cynically. "Yeah, I throw punches at gates when I'm feeling fine, too." He stepped forward like one approaching a wild animal, asking seriously, "What happened? You're out awfully quick..."  
  
"What happened." Heero was suddenly assaulted by image after image of exactly what had happened. The innocents, the thousands of people he had shot at close range. Their eyes. Their blood. Then the fire, the smoke, the screaming, the running, the crying, the praying... the smell of death. Heero's world started getting darker, fading on the edges. "Nothing." Black spots throbbed in his vision, and suddenly he felt dizzy. "It's nothing."  
  
"What's nothing?" Duo asked skeptically. "Hey, Heero, you really don't look good. Maybe you should sit down or--"  
  
Heero could barely hear Duo talking; the little girl's voice was in his head again, laughing loudly. He was too tired to bother fighting it. Why wouldn't she just leave him the hell alone? "Nothing." He repeated. "I'm fine."  
  
Fine? Yeah, right. He obviously wasn't, and Duo knew it. That damn Purgatory, no one came out of it "fine."  
  
The child knew too. She laughed again hearing him say it; Heero could almost see her pointing at him, tossing her orange hair around as she skipped happily in circles. "Of course you're fine! Ignium aeternam! You're always fine! Immortal Fire! You will always BE fine! Flammium aeternam! Fine! Fine! Fine! Fine! Fi---"  
  
"Shut up! Shut up!"  
  
Duo stared blankly as Heero clutched his head and shouted at himself. He whispered, "I didn't say anything, Heero."  
  
The soul looked up, his eyes wide as he saw Duo staring at him. "I didn't..." Heero muttered again, stumbling forward a bit as he attempted to remain upright despite the dizzying heat he was feeling. "I meant... I jus-- I..." Something was pounding through his head, making everything pulse and spin, making Duo look blurry and sound far away. "I don-- I... I shou--" Then everything flashed like a photograph's negative exposed, and the white of limbo turned black, and Duo's black robes turned white, and Duo's skin turned blue-green, and then it went away, fading to total blackness. "I'm sorry." His world fell apart then, shattering like glass, just as his vision had, as the heat, the dizziness, the dancing spots, and the laughing child's voice collided together in Heero's mind, overwhelming him. His dark blue eyes rolled back, and he fell forward into a heated unconsciousness.  
  
Even in the silence of a forced sleep, demons' voices taunted him, "Ignium aeterna! Everlasting fires! Flammis aeterna! Everlasting flames!"  
  
The cold judge growled, "Unholy creature! Vilest of sinners! Get out of my sight!"  
  
His mind shouted continuously, "Failure! Failure! Failure!"  
  
The little child saw all this and giggled in delight.  
  
And the fire inside him grew brighter. 


	8. Seeing

A/N:   
-Just a reminder that //date// states what time period it is and is used only for flashbacks.  
  
  
Chapter 8: Seeing  
  
The souls that enter Purgatory are riddled with sin. It is embedded into their souls so deeply that it must be torn out, like plucking out hairs: one by agonizing one. This is a long and grueling process. Heero had only been punished for two of his misdeeds, and thus, had not been jailed for any considerable amount of time. The other souls, however, remained engulfed in the abyss of Purgatory, having their sins ripped away while Heero and Duo waited patiently outside.  
  
At least, Duo waited. Duo was leaning back leisurely against one marble pillar of Purgatory's exit gate. He watched the ever-white distance of Limbo without seeing it; there were more important things to see and think of right now. So as he sat there, gazing into the distance, silently reveling in the feeling of Heero's dead weight against his chest, idly toying with the greasy strands of brown hair that made up Heero's bangs, Duo thought. His thoughts were troubled, and they showed on his face, but he said nothing. That is, until someone spoke to him.  
  
Duo turned his head and looked into the mirror next to him. The same image, the corpse with white hair and pale skin, was talking to him, its periwinkle lips moving soundlessly. He whispered back, so as not to disturb the still unconscious soul lying half on top of him. "You're wrong."  
  
It mouthed back, the words only audible to Duo, "Am I?"  
  
"Yes." He stared back into the distance, but could still hear the soft voice in his head, like the crunching of dead leaves.  
  
"Have I led us astray before?"  
  
"Yes, you have. You said the same thing about Wufei."  
  
"No. My memory is far better than yours, and I did not." It corrected in a chiding tone, "Besides, that matter and this will prove completely different anyway."  
  
Duo's attention caught, he turned his head, once more staring at the all-too-familiar reflection. "What do you mean?"  
  
"You know as well as I." The catlike eyes shifted from Duo, to Heero, then back. "To begin with, you never held Wufei in that mannor."  
  
"Wufei wasn't unconscious when he came out of Purgatory, smart-ass."  
  
The reflection almost sighed at its owner. "Yes. De--"  
  
Heero groaned and began moving slightly.  
  
Duo looked back down at the soul in his arms, then muttered, "Look... I'll think about it, okay? Could you just... go away for a little while?" The reflection replied something with a smirk, then it slunk downward. As the top of it reached the ground, a violet light seeped out of the mirror and crept along the floor, finally floating up even with Duo's horse and fading into the animal's already violet eyes. Duo muttered a thanks, then looked down at Heero again. He pushed back the soul's bangs a bit more and glared at the offending mark burned into the skin there. This was why Heero'd left Purgatory so quickly. Duo had been afraid of that... "Just like Wufei," He muttered to himself. To anyone who hadn't seen that mark before, it would look like nothing more that a Celtic knot of sorts. To Death, however, if looked much, much differently. Duo sighed. "I don't understand humans, Heero." He got no response from the still unconscious boy.  
  
When he looked back in the mirror, nothing was there but the blindingly white reflection of the vast Limbo.   
  
***  
  
Hilde finally gave up and shouted at him, "Wufei! Just tell me what happened!" She immediately regretted shouting as Wufei turned and stared at her with confusion.  
  
"Nothing." He shook his head. "You got the list just like the rest of us, Hilde." He continued shaking his head as his eyes glazed over in remembrance. "It was a long list this week."  
  
The gatekeeper nodded silently. "There's a war going on. All the shifts are larger than normal; you know that, Fei."  
  
"I certainly thought I knew that." He continued. "But--" He paused, trying to understand the situation himself before explaining. His black eyes met Hilde's cyan. He muttered ominously. "No one was there."  
  
Hilde gaped. "What?"  
  
Wufei continued, still stunned himself. "I collected them all. I brought them to Limbo. By the time I made it to Heaven, though, no one was behind me anymore. I went to every name on that list, Hilde, every single name!" He clenched his teeth. "They were all there one minute, I turn my back, and they're gone!" He looked down, still shaking his head, "I just don't understand it."  
  
"That's impossible!" She shouted. "They couldn't ALL have gotten lost!"  
  
He scoffed. "Well, they're certainly not in Heaven. The saint verified that much."  
  
Hilde leaned back in her seat, pondering this new revelation. "How is this possible?"  
  
"Something is wrong. Very, very wrong." Wufei looked off in the direction of Hell. "There's something going on over there that we don't know about."  
  
Biting her lip, the gatekeeper mumbled, "Do you think Duo-sama knows about it, Fei?"  
  
Wufei sighed. "If he doesn't yet," he continued glaring off into the distance. "He will soon."  
  
***  
  
Heero woke up slowly, a now ever-present pounding in his head. He sat up, pressing one arm back against the thick whiteness of Limbo's floor and the other hand rubbing one temple. God, his head hurt. What happened? He looked up to see Duo sitting across from him; Death was once again engaged in a game of solitaire. Heero rubbed his hand across his eyes and suppressed a moan. He'd just murdered thousands of innocent people in a matter of hours, he'd been incinerated by his own Gundam, he'd dealt with that pompous judge, and his traveling companion was a know-it-all god who thought so little of his situation that he could sit there and play cards. And, to top it all off, Heero felt like he had a hangover the size of Wing... without having the previous night of drinking bliss. This was all so fucking wrong. Why wasn't he just dead?  
  
....wait a minute. He WAS dead. Goddamn it!  
  
Duo looked up briefly from his cards, noting Heero's state. Yup. Purgatory was a bitch. He went back to playing cards and began talking softly. "So? You have it all figured out by now?"  
  
Heero looked up as the drone of Duo's voice drove like a nail into the side of his head. After a moment of closing his eyes to repress the tears of pain, he muttered back, "Figured what out?"  
  
"I don't know." Deep violet eyes on the cards, he shrugged. "Everything. Why you're not in Heaven right now. Why you got kicked out of Purgatory. Why you're going to Hell. What you're going to do once you get there." He placed another card down. "Things like that."  
  
Heero scoffed. Yeah. He had plenty of questions. Why wouldn't Duo just tell him the answers already? He'd been thinking about them for what felt like years now. Oh, and of course a few more questions of his own. Like what the hell did he do to deserve this? ...Aside from the murdering and sinning and all, of course... And why was he hearing those voices? Who was that little girl that repeatedly showed up in "visions"? Was he really going to Hell? Wait, didn't Duo promise that Heero wasn't going to Hell? And what the HELL was on his damn forehead? He sighed heavily. "I haven't figured anything out."  
  
Duo hummed noncommittally, still watching his cards. "Well," He finally said, "We can't leave until the others get out, you know, so you've got plenty of time to think about it." He placed another card down thoughtfully.  
  
"You've been thinking about it since you died, Yuy." Heero's mind supplied angrily. "It hasn't helped you yet." Heero leaned back and tossed his arms over his eyes to block out the light. His head continued throbbing. "Why bother."  
  
Duo put down another card, his eyes never leaving them as he continued addressing Heero. "Maybe the problem is you're thinking to hard." He finally looked over at Heero. "Maybe you should just stop thinking about it and let all the answers just come to you." A smirk threatened his lips. "You actually get more answers than you'd expect that way. Trust me."  
  
Heero sighed into his arms. Well, why not. Not thinking sounded like the best possible solution right now. A temporary, well-needed escape from thought. Good idea. He concentrated on the blackness before his closed eyes and nothing else. Eventually, he stopped thinking altogether.  
  
Duo watched as Heero's coiled muscles slowly relaxed. Heero wanted answers, huh? Well... maybe he could supply one or two. The part of his mind inhabited by the age-old Death argued against it, supply detailed and completely valid reasons why he should mind his own business, but Duo shrugged the advice off. He wouldn't give Heero answers... Not really.... Visions were up to the receiver to figure out anyway, right? Death's reflection scoffed at the twisting and half-truths Duo was telling himself. But, what was the timeless entity going to do? Duo never heeded him until it was too late anyway.  
  
***  
  
There was total darkness for a long, long time. Then, in the corner of Heero's mind, a little purple flame burst and began glowing. It started off to the side, then drew an arch upward, then it came down and flowed back on itself, then arched again, all the while leaving a glowing trail of violet light. The flame continued in this manner until it finally met back up with its origin in the corner. Now, there was a whole picture of glowing violet: an intricate, timeless design. It reminded Heero or a Celtic knot...  
  
Then the violet light flashed, and he was in total darkness once more.  
  
Through the darkness, he saw brief images of people he'd never met. A woman, a brunette, with brown eyes and a cold glare. A girl his age with short dark hair and a wavering smile. A boy around his age with dark hair and a dark, scowling expression. A girl with rich brown hair, like Duo's, and a determined blue light in her eyes. Another girl with long strawberry blonde hair and stunning blue eyes. A tall blonde man whose skin was so pale it blended into the white behind him.  
  
The world turned fiery white, then faded to the softer, blurry white of Limbo. It was definitely Limbo, Heero decided; the nothingness stretched on forever in every direction, save straight ahead. Before Heero stood the blonde girl whose image he'd just seen. He was eye-to-eye with her, and she had her arms casually draped around his neck, her lithe body pressed up against his. Their mouths mere inches apart, the girl whispered, "Come back with me."  
  
He whispered back, "Where?"  
  
Their stare broke as the blonde girl leaned forward to Heero's neck, kissing his skin openmouthed, though the physically numb soul couldn't feel it. She spoke softly into his shoulder, "Home."  
  
Then the world faded from white to black, and various images of Duo assailed him: Duo smiling, Duo shouting, Duo looking worried, Duo looking apathetic, Duo screaming, Duo looking betrayed, Duo lying on the ground, staring up, with his eyes rolled back, his hair loose, and his lips tinted blue. Duo unmoving.  
  
Then another flash, this time purple.  
  
Before he realized it, Heero was back in another dreamscape. He was walking down a long corridor. It was stone. Black stone. Smooth, but not shiny. Curious to know what the unidentifiable stone was, he ran three fingers across it as he continued walking. The wall became smooth and clean under his touch, leaving three thin lines along the wall. He removed his hand from it and looked at his fingers, rubbing them together. Soot. Like charcoal. Heero looked up once more to the never-ending corridor and continued walking.  
  
His hands were tingling. It was a mild electric shock running through his palms. It felt like the time he had grabbed Wing's controls when his hands were wet with rainwater. The same feeling. He continued walking.  
  
The room was dark, hardly lit. There were torches occasionally on the walls, but they were dimmed by some purple light. Everything Heero saw looked some shade of purple. It was odd. When he'd looked at his hand before, even, it had looked blindingly purple. Very strange. He continued walking.  
  
Heero didn't know where he was going, only that he had to get there. He was in a rush, but he couldn't understand why. Where was he? What was he doing? Why was he so eager to reach his destination? A flash of red. What was that? Another. There were things moving, like small animals, some the size of deer, off in the distance. As he walked forward, they scurried away. From fear? He continued walking.  
  
He paused. His eyes gently rolled to the right. There. There. His destination. Twin red doors rose up before him. Heavy. Solid. Strong. Heero clenched his fist and the humming vibrations grew stronger. That door. The door was strong. He was stronger. He kicked it. Nothing. He kicked it again. Again, nothing. He had to get in there. Needed to. The shaking of his clenched fist grew even more, and he slammed his shoulder into the door, pushing his full weight into it. The door clattered open with twin resounding bangs. Heero looked up, staring into the purple mist of the new room.  
  
At the far end from where he stood in the doorway was a desk and a high-backed chair. The chair swiveled around. Her. The little girl sat there, her red hair tinted dark burgundy from the violet light. Her. Her. Laughing, the girl pushed a few strands of hair behind her ear. She grinned like a malicious cat. "Hello, Mr. Yuy." Her mouth continued moving, but she said nothing. Heero's eyes were blurred from the violet light too much to read her lips. She laughed again, the noise echoing in Heero's head. "You're late."  
  
The tingling in his hands turned into burning. His shoulder blades flexed, and he suddenly realized there was an uncomfortable weight on his back. Everything faded to deep purple, then back to black.  
  
Then he was in the same room alone, standing before the chair the child had been sitting in, his back to it. The red doors, opening into the black hallway, closed as he stared at them. The purple light was gone and now; instead, everything appeared tinted crimson. As he continued staring at the doors, one opened slowly. Duo stepped in, almost self-consciously. His face was expressionless, perhaps a bit upset. He said to Heero in a clear voice, "I got your peace offering." A smile turned the corner of Duo's pink lips just slightly up. Heero smirked in return as the heavy red door behind Duo slammed shut.   
  
Everything flashed bright red, then faded to black.  
  
There was silence as Heero's conscious remained in the darkness. After a few moments, the darkness gave way to the same Celtic knot. As Heero continued examining the strange shape, wondering what it could possibly mean, he heard Duo's voice, just barely. "You see, Heero, I only send visions when I get to be in them."  
  
His eyes snapped open.  
  
***  
  
Heero, brought reeling back to reality, glared in the direction in which Duo had been playing cards. There was a soul walking there instead. Actually... Heero realized with a start that HE was walking, too. In fact, the small group of souls that had been in Purgatory were all around him, all walking, with Duo at the lead. Heero was walking with them. Strange, he hadn't even remembered standing up... like sleepwalking. But that sure as hell was no dream. He stalked to the front of the group to talk with Duo.  
  
Death was up on his horse, casually trotting it along at a decent pace that would get them to Hell quickly but shouldn't lose anyone along the way. He looked down to his left side when he heard Heero call his name. Duo smiled down brightly. "Hey, Heero. Have a nice rest?" When Heero grumbled, Duo's smirk grew. "So, you figure anything out?"  
  
He thought about that for a moment, then firmly answered, "No. Now I have more questions." Duo sighed, but said nothing, and began scratching the side of his horse's neck lovingly. They walked in silence for a few minutes before Heero broke down and asked, "Who was that girl?"  
  
"What girl?"  
  
Heero glared.  
  
Duo replied, "No, seriously. We don't have that much control on the visions we send. Honestly." He shrugged. "I focused on one thing I wanted to send you, one thing I knew. Anything else you got is kind of like a side effect. That's how visions work." He laughed once. "I know just as much about the future as you do, pal."  
  
The future? He hadn't considered that, though it certainly made sense. He hadn't met many of those people, including the blonde... "So you have no idea what I saw?"  
  
"I have the barest hint of an idea, but other than that..." Duo trailed off.  
  
Heero looked down to watch the white ground as he walked. If... If that was the future... The hallway... The room... He was going to meet the little girl that kept plaguing his mind with visions and voices.  
  
He glared off into the white distance. Oh, yes. He would kill her.  
  
And assuming she was already dead, well... he'd find a way to destroy her, even if he died trying.  
  
...Again, that is.  
  
That reminded him, he looked up at Duo and asked, "Can dead things die?"  
  
Duo looked down with a half-smirk. "Sort-of. Depends what kind of 'dead things' we're talking about."  
  
Heero paused, then asked, "Anything."  
  
"Mm..." Duo paused, then began listing them off. "Well, souls can get lost and, if they stay lost long enough, they turn into ghosts. Ghosts that don't seek redemption eventually fade out existence, but if they enter Heaven, Hell, Purg, or Hephess, they turn back to souls.  
  
"Souls can get shredded, which... isn't pretty. You've found out that souls can bleed, well, they can get human injuries, too... like losing a limb or an eye or something." He frowned. "Just like humans, if a soul gets beat up enough where a normal human would die, or worse, then the soul stops existing."  
  
Heero interrupted, "Stops existing?"  
  
Duo shrugged. "Yeah. Just what the words mean. One minute the soul's there, the next... Poof. It's gone. No one really knows what happens." He laughed. "Some people think souls turn into human shadows. Some say they turn into reflections. Some people say they just hang around in Hephess, but I know that that one's not true. And then you have the people that believe there's life after the after life and that souls get reincarnated in Human, but that has yet to be proven."  
  
He thought this over for a minute. "Just like on Earth. No one knows."  
  
"I guess so." He laughed. "Kind of ironic." He shrugged and continued, "Anyway, where was I? Hm... you know angels can fall, and go back to Human, if they do. Shades and demons can't fall, but they can stop existing, just like souls... Anything messy would make them stop existing... Think beheading or losing more than one limb. Yuck.  
  
"There are various other creatures wandering around: Spirits, Lurkers, Wraiths, and whole load of things, but they all have their own ways of being killed all over again. Basically, nothing's invincible."  
  
"What about you?"  
  
Duo looked down solemnly at Heero for a moment, "Everything can die, Heero." Then gave him a half-smile, "Even us omnipotent god-types."  
  
***  
  
//AD 1958//  
  
"Treize-sama...?" She whispered gently. "Treize-sama, please answer me."  
  
Treize had been sitting at his desk for an entire day now. No matter what Une had said or done, he refused to be moved. The faithful Gatekeeper had tried everything she could think of, bribing him with everything both Hell and Human had to offer. Nothing worked. The Devil simply refused to be moved. He barely spoke, and when he did, it was either a nonsensical musing, an order, or both.  
  
"It won't last." Treize muttered, still staring into a delicate wine glass that was half-full (and that had been so for some time).  
  
Lady Une sat on the arm of his chair, draping her arms around him in a comforting hug. "What won't, Trieze-sama?" She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and stared sadly up at him.  
  
"Everything." He whispered darkly. "Hell. You. I." He went on with finality. "We are all doomed, My Lady. All because it cannot last. Nothing lasts for all of Eternity, no matter how we delude ourselves into believing so."  
  
She took in a shuttering breath, "I can't stand to see you this way, Treize-sama. Please," She begged, tightening her hold on him and pressing her face into his neck. "Tell me what to do." She whispered against his skin. "You know I'll do anything."  
  
"There is nothing we can do." As a dismal afterthought, he added, "Save wait for the uprising."  
  
"You can't be sure." She argued back feebly for the hundredth time this week. "Your children, we love you, Treize-sama. You can't believe that we would..."  
  
"They will." He cut in. "Soon." With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair, Une releasing her grip to allow him the freedom of that motion. Treize's fiery red eyes glazed over pensively as he stared up at the black stone ceiling of his bedchambers. "I'm getting old anyway."  
  
Kneeling by his chair now, Une shook her head. "You're no older than that evil God or that brat Death."  
  
With a great sigh of frustration, Trieze rose from his chair. "I do not expect you to understand, Lady."  
  
Desperately, she called out, "Explain it to me, then. I'll listen for Eternity and longer, Treize-sama."  
  
He was silent for a moment, then began softly, "I am a rebel, Lady. That is what I am. An alternative. My children are rebels as well." He gazed thoughtfully at a far-off wall. "It is foolish to believe that rebels will obey one man forever. I'm surprised I've lasted this long. I suppose they were simply waiting for a reason." He sighed softly. "Now they have it, thanks to that love-sick, disobedient child."  
  
"Treize-sama..."  
  
He turned back and smiled gently down at her. "Don't worry, Lady. All is for the best. I have full faith in the future of Hell." He paused, the smile fading, then trailed off, "Only..."  
  
"What?" She perked up, attentive instantly. "Only what?"  
  
"My dearest Lady," their eyes met. "Take care of Mariemeia for me."  
  
Une's eyes widened for a moment, then she bowed deeply with a resigned, "Yes, Trieze-sama." She closed her eyes.   
  
"Anything for you." 


	9. Beginning

A/N:   
-This is the last chapter in this book! Finally! I may start writing the second book, or I may not. I suppose it depends on my mood, amount of free time, and interest. I want to make you guys happy; really I do... I'm just lazy. Heh. And I have a lot of school work. Gr. AND I also have to solidify the plot of the second book, which is really the important thing. So give me time. Or don't, and just give up on me. The latter's probably safer.  
-Anyway, it was a lot of fun to write this book. Thank you for those who reviewed and revived my interest for this on more than one occasion. Thank you to those who read and enjoyed even a little bit. Thank you the most to the people who read the whole thing from the beginning, despite my writer's blocks and evil wavering self-esteem. You guys are the ones I write fanfic for. Maybe I'll see you again in Book 2: Death's Antithesis. ...Or maybe something better.  
  
  
Chapter 9: Beginning  
  
The road of white from Purgatory to Hell was far too long a walk. Or perhaps it only seemed that way to those who walked it. They had never seen Hell in its full glory, yet they had heard the horrible tales. They had heard tales of Purgatory's wrath, too, but what they'd seen was beyond all stories. What, then, did this say about Hell? Perhaps that road was not as long as it seemed after all. On the other hand, perhaps it was longer; Hell's first punishment, perhaps, was the anticipation of arriving there.  
  
The tension was above them like a blanket. Heero, walking with them, was not nearly so afraid of Hell as he was curious. Duo had promised that he would not be going to Hell. Beyond rational reason, he believed Duo. But the tension was contagious. He was surrounded by the hopeless, the fallen, the men and women so stained with Guilt and Sin that their faces seemed distorted into plastic masks by them. Heero wondered what his face would look like if he could see his reflection; would he look like them?  
  
But that brought him back to another problem. There was still something tangible on his forehead that he couldn't see, couldn't feel, couldn't decipher. What was it? How had it gotten there? How long had it been there? None of the others seemed to have it... He'd asked Duo what it was, and Duo had commented back with a riddle, such as, "You haven't realized yet?" or "You'll figure it out." Heero had wondered if the situation were reversed if he would be as annoying as Duo was being. He doubted it.  
  
The child's voice seemed to be getting louder. He could see her as if she were only a few feet away, tromping about him, pulling his hair, stepping on his feet, calling him a "poor lost sheep," telling him that she would be his shepherd. She was becoming harder to ignore with every step. Her ranting was becoming even less sensible.  
  
Duo was being strangely quiet, Heero finally noticed. On all the other trips, Duo had been talking to Heero almost nonstop, no matter what the topic. Now, though... he just watched the path before them silently, occasionally taking a moment to look down at Heero from his horse and smile reassuringly.   
  
Frankly, it was unnerving.  
  
What was Duo so preoccupied with? What could he possibly be thinking about? Why was he acting so strangely all of a sudden? What had happened? And wh--  
  
Suddenly, Heero noticed that they were passing other souls. Strange. The men and women were lined exactly one behind the other, all looking straight at the hair of the head before them. Heero narrowed his eyes, noticing that they didn't even blink.  
  
The group from Purgatory, Heero included, stopped with Death. Duo had jumped down from his horse by this time and was standing next to one such soul. He tried talking to the soul, asking it questions, but he got no response. Finally frustrated, he grabbed the soul's arm and started pulling backwards. As soon as the man was slightly out of alignment, he sprang to life, flailing his arm, shouting for help and, finally, punching Duo clear across the face.  
  
Duo fell back a few steps staring incredulously. The soul was back in line, staring at the head in front of him, unmoving. He muttered with reverence, "What the hell...?"  
  
The voice in Heero's head was laughing loudly. Heero looked over to the soul next to him. It was an old woman, probably around 70. She had her hands crossed before her, holding a purse tightly to her stomach. Her eyes were unblinking, just like the rest. Curious, Heero reached out and grabbed the woman's arm. She remained unmoving. He took the purse from her, wrenching out of her grip. Still, the woman didn't flinch. Heero grabbed the woman's arm again, this time pulling her out of line. She suddenly snapped awake, crying "thief!" and grabbing her purse back, shuffling back into line, where she was silent once more. Strange.  
  
He turned to Duo. "Are we supposed to get on this line?"  
  
"No!" The shout startled all members of the group. Duo spoke through his teeth. "Don't any of you think about it, all right? Just..." He shook his head. "Just wait here." He started stomping down the line toward its beginning, only to turn back and remind, "Don't get on this line!" His horse followed obediently as Duo began running.  
  
Heero paused for only a minute before running after Duo.   
  
The rest of the souls remained, as they were told. Not five minutes later, however, all of them were at the end of the line, staring blankly ahead, waiting for their number to be called.  
  
***  
  
Quatre was sitting on a bench made of grey stone, staring at his hand: the hand that had touched Trowa's bare skin, the hand that had proven just how deep his misplaced love was, the hand that had cast him out of God's light, the hand that would cause him to fall from grace in a only matter of time just for touching a hand less pure. This hand was shaking uncontrollably under his gaze.  
  
In another corner of the room, Catherine whispered, "Well, I don't know." She crossed her arms. "Nothing like this has ever happened before in Hephess."  
  
"I know that, Catherine." Trowa whispered back to her, glancing over at Quatre again. "But we have to do something."  
  
Quatre, feeling the eyes on him looked up and smiled thinly. Neither Catherine nor Trowa smiled back. They looked at each other. Catherine asked, "Well, doesn't he know how it works?" Quatre's smile dropped quickly, and he went back to contemplating his shaking hand.  
  
Trowa debated back in an even whisper, "Why should he?"  
  
"I don't know." She defended herself. "Hasn't he known angels that have fallen? Or heard stories, at least?"  
  
Hesitantly, Trowa spared another glance at the angel across the room. He couldn't help but wince as another white feather wafted gently to the floor, turning off-white, then grey, then finally black all before it hit the ground. Guilt wasn't even the word for it; there had to be something stronger to define the way he was feeling. "He said he couldn't remember an angel actually falling in his existence, and that the stories he heard were all exaggerated to the point of unreliability." He looked back toward Catherine as another two or three feathers fell; it was painful to watch. "He doesn't know."  
  
"Duo-sama would." She added with optimism. "When he gets back, we can just ask."  
  
Trowa didn't want to say that Quatre might not last that long. The feathers were all falling out so quickly... And what happened when they were all gone? What would the bare wings look like? And then what? Would they just... Morbid curiosity, not concern, Trowa scolded himself silently. He simply conceded instead, "Yes."  
  
Knowing there was nothing else to say or do, Catherine vanished to find Wufei and Hilde and ask them. Her shift didn't start for another hour, as strange as it was that they were all home at once (save Duo), so she had time to spare. Wufei probably wouldn't know, but maybe Hilde would; maybe Duo had told her once. Catherine went to ask the gatekeeper.  
  
Why was he so hesitant to just go over and sit next to Quatre? There was something... something wrong about it all. More wrong that even human death, more sad and twisted and illogical. Angels shouldn't fall. It... It wasn't right. What had Quatre done to deserve this? He was still as loyal to God as he had ever been, wasn't he? Quatre had done nothing wrong; Trowa was sure of it. Nothing. There was pale skin showing between the feathers now, perfect skin like Quatre's hands, which were still shaking as he stared at them with unmercifully contemplation.  
  
He was afraid, that was why. He was afraid that if he touched Quatre again, even came close to touching him, that the angel would break completely, shatter like a glass figurine. Look how much one brief touch had done. Imagine something longer, or more intimate... It could very well shatter him completely. A longer feather fell this time, longer than any hunting bird's. It fell white, faded grey, then black, and hit the floor soundlessly, adding to the building pile. And it was all his fault that those perfect feathers were burning in midair. All his fault... Trowa sat down where he stood, still shadowed by the comforting wall of Hephess which he leaned against. He sat, leaned forward, and buried his face in the soft black cloth of his sleeves, taking comfort in the familiar smell of it. It wasn't fair to Quatre. It wasn't. Nothing was fair.  
  
The angel and the shade, in purest silence, sat, and sat, and waited for an answer.  
  
***  
  
Duo slammed his hands down on Une's desk, a few papers flying off to land on Limbo's white ground. "What the hell is this all about?"  
  
Une raised a thin brick-colored eyebrow and stared down at Duo's hands as they crumpled her papers. She pulled a few out from beneath his grasp and straightened them. "I have no idea what you mean, Death-sama."  
  
"Oh, spare me." Duo shot back, straightening. He gestured to the line. "This. This wasn't here yesterday. What's going on?"  
  
Une grabbed a few papers from the floor and put them back on her desk. "If you please, Death-sama, I'm very busy right now. If you'd like to make an appointment," she smirked, "You'll have to go to the end of the line."  
  
Duo growled. "This is wrong." He whirled around to face the line and shouted back, "I'll prove this is wrong!" He started at the first one and began asking the souls their names. Not one responded. When he had asked the twenty-first, who was a young boy no older than six, and still got no response, he pulled the boy out of line. The small soul fought wildly against him, resorting to kicking and biting Duo's hand, but Duo held on and asked Une bitterly, "Go ahead. Tell me his name. List his sins." Without giving her a chance to respond, he continued, "You can't do it, can you? I'll tell you why you can't! He's not on your list. He doesn't belong here!" He shouted furiously at her, "He did nothing! That's his sin! Why is here?!"  
  
The gatekeeper looked the boy over impassively, then stated, "If he wants to be here, then you cannot stop him, Death-sama." She smiled knowingly. "So please, put him back."  
  
Inhaling sharply once, Duo let go, and the boy ran back to his exact position in line. With a dark expression, Duo strode toward Une and leaned over her desk, meeting her red eyes with a glare. "I don't know what you did to them, demon..."  
  
"I did nothing."  
  
"...but, I will find out what it is. And Satan help you when I do, because you haven't seen what punishment can be."  
  
She met his glare evenly and repeated slowly. "I. Did. Noth-ing. They are here of their own free will, Death-sama." Une snarled. "And even you cannot sway that."  
  
He pointed at the line. "You call that free will?"  
  
Une looked down at her papers. "I have business to attend, if you don't mind terribly."  
  
"I do mind."  
  
"I don't care what you mind."  
  
He shouted, "Don't you dare disrespect me, demon!"  
  
She stood up from her desk, "You're not my god!"  
  
Duo's eyes widened.   
  
Une flinched, but didn't retract what she'd said.  
  
Duo scoffed softly. "So that's what this has come to, huh?" He saw Une's jaw clench, but she held her ground. "Fine." After a moment, Duo turned sharply on his heel, robes flowing out behind him. "I'll expect a meeting with 'your god.' " He walked evenly away, his horse in tow.   
  
Heero, who had been watching the argument, remained unmoved, utterly confused as to what had just happened. After a moment of hesitation, he began following Duo when a voice from behind called, "Where do you think you're going, Heero Yuy?" He stopped in his steps and turned around.  
  
Une was sitting once more, her back rigid in the chair. "You can't go anywhere. You sold yourself. Mariemeia-sama owns you."  
  
He looked over to where Duo was heading, then back to Une.  
  
"Don't deny it." Une snarled. "The proof is on burned into your skin. We both know it."  
  
Still walking away, Duo called out, "C'mon Heero, before you get lost."  
  
Une continued, "You can't run from what you are, Heero Yuy."  
  
Heero looked at Une once more, then down at his feet and followed after Duo. He could hear Une shouting after him. The voice in his head was screaming over Une's, calling him stupid, telling him that he was only delaying it, so why bother?, telling him that he was being controlled by Death, that Death was leading him like he had a leash, telling him that nothing good would come of this, telling him that he should just stay in Hell where he belonged!  
  
When Heero finally caught up with Duo, he asked what had just happened.  
  
Duo glanced over at Heero, then smiled brightly. "Hey, don't worry about it. I told you you weren't going to Hell." He laughed. "Did you really want to wait on that line?"  
  
"No..." Heero glanced behind him at the receding gate and its keeper. He turned back to Duo. "So what now?"  
  
Duo smiled back. "You ever wonder what Hephess is like?"  
  
He nodded, willing Duo to continue, though the child's voice in his head was still screaming.  
  
***  
  
Une was nervous. It was only hours after her confrontation with Death, and now she had been called into Satan's chambers. She didn't know why. The demon tried not to show it, walking steadily with one hand on her hip and the other clenched at her side. Still... her eyes darted around the room suspiciously, like a caged animal's.  
  
The heavy doors opened for her, and she walked into the room with feigned ease.  
  
"Lady Une," the god behind the high backed chair cooed.  
  
"Yes, Mariemeia-sama?"  
  
The child's voice was silent for a moment before she said excitedly, "I've had another vision, Lady. Would you like to hear it?"  
  
Une bit her lip softly, then asked, "Of what is it this time, may I ask?"  
  
"You may." The child giggled, swiveling her chair around to watch Une as she spoke. She began talking with enthusiasm. "Him. It was a vision of him again. And I was at a door. A large door. A door to something of great scale, I knew it! A great, wonderful door. And he was there. Him, the one I've told you about. He was at the door, also. And we stood there. We stood there at the wonderful door. Then I realized that to open this door, I needed a key. I asked him for the key. He said he did not have it. He was lying, I could tell! I told him he was lying. He told me he was not. But he was! I knew he was! I told him to come to me so that I might open the door, but he refused. He would not help me open the door. So I went to him, there in front of the door and I killed him, easily, with my bare energy. And, do you know what then? Do you?"  
  
She hesitated, then whispered, "What then?"  
  
Mariemeia giggled, clasping her hands together. "I was right! He was lying. He knew where the key was! He WAS the key. Him! All this time. I took his blood on my hands, and it was the key. His blood opened the door. And it was glorious. I was glorious then."  
  
Une bowed her head and asked submissively, "What do you wish me to do?"  
  
There was silence for a moment. "I've called to him, told him to come to me, but he will not. He will not, just like in my vision. But I need the key, Lady! I need the key to open the door." She spoke seriously for the first time. "I'm asking you, Lady Une. Find my key. Bring him back here so that I may open the door." She was excited again, "I need my key. I need it. I need it to open that door! You understand, don't you?"  
  
"Yes, Mariemeia-sama." Une bowed deeply, then turned and walked out; the doors closed behind her. She leaned against one and sighed heavily. She whispered to the ceiling, "Treize-sama, I'm trying." She kicked off of the door and began walking with her head down, muttering, "But it's harder than I imagined it would be caring for a child of yours." Before returning to her desk, Une detoured through Hell to find a certain room. She wandered down hallways until she found the one she was looking for, then opened it wide. The occupants within straightened immediately, looking at the demon that had entered with suspicion. Une ordered harshly, "I don't know who's turn it is, but I need one of you for a very important job, so get out here. Now." The girls all pointed at one of their own. The blonde being pointed at stood fluidly and walked up to Une, then followed her out as the demon explained the circumstances of the "job."  
  
"This is important." She barked at the young girl trailing behind her. "If you are not successful, do not even bother returning. You would be better off not existing that to come back unsuccessful. Do you understand?"  
  
The blonde girl nodded, her eyes hidden by her thick blonde bangs. "I do."  
  
"Good." She brought the blonde girl through the gate and to her desk, where she rifled through a few drawers before pulling out a folder. "His name is Heero Yuy. All of the information you need is there." Une handed the folder over to the girl, who took it and began leafing through its contents. "He's heading toward Hephess as we speak, and you must get to him before he's entered, and you must do everything in your power to keep him from becoming a shade, do you understand?"  
  
"Heero Yuy..." Her bright blue eyes ran over his photo, "Mm..." and through some of the information. "A soul? What makes him so important?"  
  
Une replied sharply, "That's not your concern. Just get the job done."  
  
She raised her blonde head. "You want him brought back? In one piece?"  
  
"Yes. As soon as possible."  
  
The girl nodded, looking down into the folder in her hands. She smiled. "I think I can manage that."  
  
Une scoffed. "You'd better."  
  
She took the photo from the folder and handed the rest back to Une. "One soul on a silver platter..." The picture in hand, she formed a fist that burst into flames, then died back down. When she opened her hand, the picture was gone. "...Coming up."  
  
***   
  
The screaming voice had died down until it was barely audible in the back of his mind. The further he got from Hell, it seemed, the softer the voice became.  
  
After Duo had described Hephess in great detail, the conversation lulled for a while. Then, Heero asked, "What's going on?"  
  
He glanced over at Heero, who was looking at his feet. "What do you mean?"  
  
Heero shrugged. "That conversation with Une. What did she mean about being her god? And why was that so offensive?"  
  
Duo grew very silent about that and didn't answer for a long time. "Things... are complicated... right now, Heero."  
  
"What's that mean?" Heero was used to being told half truths. He'd never liked it.  
  
Sighing, Duo attempted to explain. "There are politics to Hephess and Hell and Heaven, too, like on Earth. We... don't get along well. And... things happen, not good things, and we get mad at each other, and there are tensions...  
  
"It's all about balance." He tried it from another angle. "Everyone's got to get along for all of the domains to run smoothly." He grumbled. "Unfortunately, some gods, who will remain nameless (God and Satan), refuse to just compromise on anything. Then there are power struggles, and sacrifices, and arguments, and wars, and..."  
  
Heero broke in here, "Wars?"  
  
Duo flinched. "Yeah." He glared at the white before them. "Lots of wars."  
  
"Who fights them?"  
  
He glanced over at Heero again, but said nothing.  
  
"Who fights them?" Heero repeated, his attention held. "Who are the soldiers?"  
  
Duo ran a hand through his bangs before replying wearily. "Angels. Demons. Shades. You know: the kids." He muttered, "It's always the kids."  
  
Impartially, he asked, "And you're okay with that?"  
  
"No, I'm not 'okay' with it!" He shot back.  
  
Heero returned, "Then why do you let it happen?"  
  
"Well, who else is going to fight?"  
  
"You." He answered evenly. "The gods. The ones with the arguments."  
  
Duo shook his head. "You know it's not that easy, Heero. Look at Human wars. Do the emperors fight? The presidents? The political figureheads?"  
  
"...No." He stared at his shoes again.   
  
"They send the kids."  
  
"...Yeah."  
  
There was a long, gloomy silence after that as they both considered war and its unfairness. Eventually, Heero's mind began wandering to other, more pressing matters.  
  
Like where they were going, for instance. They were going to Hephess. And Duo wanted Heero as one of his shades, one of his kids, one of his soldiers. ...Maybe more than that.... or maybe even less.  
  
As it was, though, Heero was in no position to argue, so he kept his mouth shut and was led by Death, once again, to yet another distant destination from which he might never escape. Like Limbo. Like Heaven. Like Hell.  
  
After dwelling on it, Heero realized that he was confused, but what was new? He didn't know exactly what Duo's motives were, he didn't know if he WANTED to know, and he didn't know what he wanted them to be. He didn't know if he liked that he was being taken to Hephess or if he liked that he would, most likely, become a permanent resident of the place. He didn't know what being a shade was like, what it entailed, and he didn't know if he would fit in with the others (and, aside from Trowa, exactly how many "others" there were and what they were like). He didn't know if he could handle the responsibility of collecting souls and delivering them to their resting places for all eternity. He didn't know if he WANTED that responsibility. He didn't know what kind of trouble he was causing by not going to Hell, if he was worth that trouble, or if it was worth going back to Hell just to prevent this trouble. He didn't know which of the now hundreds of visions he'd had were real, what any of them meant, why the voices hadn't stopped, or why that damn child hadn't stopped pestering him! He was just so damn helpless, lost, and confused.   
  
Always so lost.  
  
And a failure, his mind supplied.  
  
And owned by Satan, another part of his subconscious reminded.  
  
And being led, like a mindless machine, by Death, another part added in.  
  
He glanced over at Duo. What difference did it make, really? Death or Satan? Hephess or Hell? WAS there a difference?   
  
When had he lost his free will? When had become a... a possession to be played with? A toy to be tossed around and pulled between two jealous toddlers? Heero had ALWAYS made his own decisions when he'd been alive! Yes, he'd taken orders, but it'd been up to HIM whether he'd followed those orders or not. At least then he had the option!  
  
The more he thought about it, dwelled on it, the more it bothered him. What gave Duo the RIGHT to save him from Hell? What if Heero WANTED to go to Hell, huh? Or what if Heero want to go back to Purgatory and try again? He could do that! Or wonder around for the rest of Eternity? What if Heero just didn't want to be one of Duo's mindless followers, bowing and groveling and using honorifics, like Trowa was? It was about time Heero stopped being lost and started finding himself, since no one else would. When he got to Hephess, then he'd start. Yes. Then, he'd tell Duo exactly what he thought: that Duo couldn't control him anymore, just because Duo happened to be Death and a god. All Heero had in this strange world was his soul, and he'd be damned it he was just going to give it up to whoever placed the highest bid!  
  
Yes. It was settled, then. As soon as they reached Hephess, Heero was leaving. He was already lost in every way, why not become lost literally, too? What difference would it make, save that he would have done something voluntarily for once? It was his decision, damn it! And nobody, not Satan, not Duo, not even God would be able to stop him. Yes. Heero was sick of being dragged around from one corner of Limbo to another. He was sick of it! He was sick of being controlled.  
  
Duo glanced over warily then, just quickly, before returning his gaze back to his destination.  
  
Yes. Heero, too glared at the horizon. He had decided. The next chance he got, Heero Yuy was taking his freedom, and his dignity, back for himself.  
  
To Hell with being lost.  
  
  
  
***  
End of Book One: Death's Promise.  
*** 


End file.
